{55} (cont’d)
2) In second place, I said that religation is the primordium of any positive religion despite not being a positive religion. And it is necessary to take this power of deity at one and the same time in its three moments, and not only one. If we were to take, for example, only the moment of ultimateness, it would be impossible to establish the base for any positive religion. The famous Theós, of Aristotle, unmoved mover and pure act, was never useful to found a religion. Because to the God of Aristotle no one can address supplications, or ask for help; he moves without being moved as the object of love and desire. It is necessary, therefore, to take the three moments at one and the same time: ultimateness, possibility, and imposition. Taken at one and the same time these three characteristics constitute the power of deity, and encompass the primordium of any positive religion.
Inasmuch as the power of deity is ultimate, it is a power that rests upon itself. This is in the very structure of religation. And that is why, whenever man elaborates a positive religion, the first act he will perform before a god or whatever the ultimate reality may be, is precisely the acquiescence to adoration confronting something that rests upon itself. In second place, as possibilitating power, powerfulness is a fountain of different possibilities, which man has to realize himself. The course of his life is not outlined univocally, and therefore this also affects the contour, which the figure of his substantive being will have. Whenever man may elaborate a positive religion he will have to take account not only of the fact that there are gods, which are ultimate realities, but that they are fountains that can really dispense possibilities {56} in life. These are precisely the dispensing gods, the gods to whom one can address a supplication, ask for help, or implore that an obstacle or a misfortune be avoided. As possibilitating, ultimate reality is what I have called a “meaning-thing”1. And in third place, inasmuch as the power of deity is an imposing power, man can do nothing but acquiesce to it, and in that acquiescence precisely consists what has been called —there is no other term— religious morality. But religious morality does not resemble at all the morality of pure duties. Because while the morality of pure duties only moves within the range of what should be done, religious morality is quite a different thing: it is the acquiescence to that which deity imposingly compels us or gives us. For that reason, something that from the moral point of view is nothing but a fault, from the point of view of deity is a peccatum, and that is a different matter.
Therefore, in religation there is the primordium of the essential moments of a religion. Furthermore, since religation still does not take us directly to any particular god, but simply to the powerfulness of deity, to the power of reality as deity, it illuminates the field of that with which man has to build his life under the light of the religating fundamentality. Man is constitutively turned towards things, towards other men, and towards himself. Taken at one and the same time, these three dimensions, which belong in a radical (non extrinsic or additive) way to the oneness of religation, provide us with an illumination of deity that will conduct to a vision of things within deity, and clearly to a “theo-cosmology”. It is going to conduct, in addition, to a vision of the totality of men from the point of {57} view of deity; this is the beginning of an institutionalization, if you will, of an ecclesia. It is also, insofar as imposing, something in which there is going to be an incidence of that characteristic that will determine which one will be the ultimate figure each individual will take, i.e., an eschatology2. Theo-cosmology, ecclesiology, and eschatology are moments of every religion, not by chance or by human reflection, but because they are a primordial efflorescence3 of the radical oneness in which religation consists. This religation is not what has been called “natural religion”, because while employing this expression we are not told what is understood by “natural”, or at best it is understood that “natural” is a tendency that springs naturally from human nature. However, religation is not a natural tendency of human nature, but a formally constitutive moment of personal being as such.
IV. How do things appear in religation?4
If it is true that this power of deity —the power of the real qua real— is precisely in things because they are real, and appears modulated by the reality of these things. That means that things appear, from a certain point of view, as seen from the perspective of the reality they are qua reality, as something in which deity occurs precisely in its characteristic of reality. This is the fourth {58} point, which I will cover briefly: How do things appear in religation?
In the first place, deity, i.e., the characteristic of reality as such qua dominating, as power, is not an extra note or a property, which things have, but something that formally constitutes them in their characteristic of real qua real. This means that deity is not separate from things, as if on the one hand there were things, and on the other deity: that is totally incorrect. Deity is found nowhere but in things. And things, conversely, are the only ones in which the mind of man is continuously actualizing their characteristic of reality qua dominating.
Hence, this means that among things seen from the perspective of deity, and things seen as naked reality there is a certain difference, but a difference that is never a separation. It is not the case of two kinds of things, but of two dimensions —so to speak— in all things. In the measure they are naked reality, it is precisely what we call “profane”. In the measure they are precisely an internal moment of deity, which consists and occurs in them, they are precisely what we call “religious”, in the sense of religation, not in the sense of a positive religion. I regret to differ with the historians of religions who seem to think —and the fashion is acquiring oceanic characteristics— that the fundamental difference, which must appear at the very beginning of the science of religions is the difference between the sacred and the profane. I consider this as something simply incorrect. The fundamental difference lies in the difference between the profane and the religious. Certainly, the religious can be sacred. But it is sacred {59} because it is religious, not religious because it is sacred. And precisely by this reason all objects, even the most profane, have this dimension of deity. They are never extraneous to an attitude of discovery of the religious when approached with the elementary sense of religation. This may seem somewhat subtle. But, Who does not remember the famous phrase of St. Teresa of Avila who said that the Lord was among the pots and pans? Actually, the mystic finds God not as one more thing among the others, but as something that reflects in all of them what we call the characteristic of deity5. It is not a question of two kinds of objects, or a dissociation between the sacred and the profane, but of two dimensions —the profane and the religious—, which every reality has and can have, down to the most elemental and trivial.
One may ask then, In what does the articulation of these two dimensions consist? It is not as simple as it may seem. This difference between deity and naked reality is not a mere conceptual subtlety. Deity, actually, is present in things in two different ways. One, so to speak, “completive”: things, in their reality, are positively the seat of deity, and therefore religate “attractively”. But there are things whose reality is “defective”, which therefore manifest the power of deity defectively. These things religate man “aversively”: they are the forbidden, the taboo. But the forbidden and the taboo are sacred aspects precisely because the reality of these things is the defective and aversive presence of deity. The internal articulation of naked reality and dominance, i.e., the articulation between real things and deity is therefore a serious problem. That articulation is precisely {60} what the Greek language calls áinigma, enigma: the vision of a thing through its refulgence, in that light from another thing, which is seen directly. It is a mirror-like vision of deity in all things.
Deity is not identified with things, but it is also not outside or extraneous to them. One might say this is somewhat confusing. Let us employ a more precise term and say that this is enigmatic. It is precisely an enigma, which considers in what measure the reality as such of things founds (funda) the power of deity in one sense or another, as creator, announcer, or resplendent. This is precisely an enigma to which we must reply. And the answer to that question is precisely the way of the history of God in the history of religions. Because that enigma is not simply a static and quiescent obscurity, but is rather dynamic. We do not know what it is, but it takes us inexorably to clarify it. It is not just something obscure. There are millions of obscurities in the universe. A professor of mine in Paris used to say: “If I only knew what a ray of light is!”. And this was someone no less than De Broglie. It is not a question of these obscurities. The question is that things qua real are constitutively enigmatic. The characteristic of reality has that dimension of being the power of deity, without us accurately seeing exactly how this is so: What is the basis in reality for this characteristic we call “deity”? The answer to that question is precisely the problem of God.
{61}
APPENDIX
DIVINITY AND REVELATION6
As I have pointed out, the problem of God is located in an attitude of the personal being of man, which in the case of man as in the case of any other reality, has the characteristic of a second act with respect to the primary reality. In the case of man this being is the I, his substantive being. And in this personal attitude there is actualized in man what I have called the “fundamentality” of his own being, i.e., reality insofar as ultimate, possibilitating, imposing. These three dimensions at one and the same time qualify the radical attitude of man as a religation to reality as such, insofar as a characteristic of things, ultimate, possibilitating, imposing. These three characteristics taken at one and the same time are what characterizes the capacity of reality by virtue of which it is ultimate, possibilitating, and also imposing with respect to man. This is what I called “condition”. Condition is the capacity, which the real has to be constituted in the sense of something. And so, this condition is what in a thematic, and purely nominal manner, I have called “power”: it is the power of deity. Power is the condition of the real qua real by being dominating, contradistinguished from mere causality, which is the functionality of the real qua real.
{62} A) Deity and divinity. This power of deity has unfolded historically into a progressive enrichment. Viewed from the power of deity, things, in which reality inheres, appear as surrounded by a peculiar form, because it is they themselves in their reality that are the ones possessing that condition of being a power, which however, has appeared as something confusedly inscribed in reality. To this confusion I gave the more precise name of “enigma”. Enigma is not metaphor, or any kind of expression, which may designate something constitutively obscure; enigma signifies thematically the condition, which things have inasmuch as there inheres in them that characteristic of reality as power: the power of deity. This enigma poses, therefore, the problem of the fundament: By virtue of what does reality have that condition, which makes us say it is deity, that it is the power of deity? This fundament has to be found in reality itself, since reality is the one, which comprises that condition. Nevertheless, in one way or another, it needs to be founded, because it is not clear why and to what extent deity is inscribed in reality as such. To that fundament, which undoubtedly belongs to reality without being deity, but is precisely the fundament of the deity of things, I shall nominally call God or divinity. We should not think at this time of any special type of God, that is not the point. Even in the extreme case of atheism this concept is perfectly applicable. It is not a question, indeed, of any particular type of God —I shall refer to those types further on—, but rather what I am now designating here as God is precisely that moment of reality —a moment in one form or another (we shall have to investigate it)— by virtue of which reality as such comprises that condition, which transpires and actualizes itself in religation as power of deity. It is to this {63} fundament that the historical unfolding of the idea of God refers.
The enigma, I said, does not signify anything static, i.e., it is not a problem that is just there and can be left aside. No. This enigma has an essentially dynamic characteristic. Just as deity is something not only ultimate, but possibilitating and also impelling, this enigma —the enigma of divinity— is not something just there, but actually drags man, precisely because deity itself as present in reality drags him with its form of power. The enigma takes us inexorably to an inquiry about the fundament in reality, to the fundament of deity, i.e., to the problem of God. We therefore ask, How is it that man, from this point of view I call “dynamic” (with no other qualifications), finds himself dragged to inquire as to what is the fundament of deity in things, i.e., divinity. How does this occur?
We can begin with the affirmation that deity is in reality, since reality comprises that condition. Consequently, its fundament, one way or the other, is in that very reality. But then, among real things there is one, which is precisely myself, since I am also a reality. By virtue of this, I share precisely that condition of being susceptible to be considered as a reality as such. Man not only makes his life with things, and with other men; he builds it also with himself, with his own substantive reality, which shares that dimension of power, and must be considered as a moment of reality as such. As reality qua reality, I have a substantive being, I am myself. As a substantive being, it is my own reality, I myself, who actualizes itself precisely in that I, who expresses in one form or another my outset into reality {64} as such. It is in my I, and not only in things other than I, where reality qua reality also manifests itself, and consequently, the power of deity. It might be said that this would be to start from an anthropocentric conception. Yes and no. The reason for this is the fact that we are overly habituated, under the pressure of modern philosophy from Descartes on, to believe that everything that occurs in man is subjective, and the objective is where everything surrounding him starts. This is completely erroneous. Man is a reality, and as a reality, many of the things he encounters concerning reality qua reality he encounters in his own reality, not insofar as subjective, but qua real. That is the decisive point in the problem.
Now, if we pay attention to the substantive being of man, we find that in his conscience (using the term in an absolutely trivial sense, without going into further elucidations) the power of deity (regardless of the term used for it) has been actualized religatingly. As a consequence, man realizes that his conscience tells him, in one form or another, the multiple things he can do, the many possibilities he has for acting, and even the duty he has to act in one way or another. All that is true, but it is not ultimate or radical. It is not so because what is essential is not that, which conscience tells me I can or must do, but the fact that this conscience tells me. Moreover, it tells it to me in a concrete form as a dictation, it dictates. The point is not what it dictates, but the very fact that it dictates. In what does the incoercible force of that dictating consist, which I can actually disobey, but as phenomenon is unquestionable?
That dictating is what we call “the voice of conscience”, in the most trivial sense of the word “conscience”. So far the term voice has a sense, which is not well defined. I will now {65} proceed to indicate why, and in what sense it is a voice. We are dealing, then, with a dictating, and not simply with the content of what is dictated. Consequently, this very dictating is nothing but reality qua reality, to which I belong by the mere fact of being a reality. A reality that imposes on us qua reality, and in one form or another issues forth out of reality —or appears through it— that which as an incontrovertible fact we call “the power of deity” without any theorizing at all. From this follows that the voice of conscience has —from the point of view of content— the characteristic of a dictation, since it springs from reality itself as fundament of deity. To be sure, the activity of the voice of conscience does not manifest to us the fundament in which she might consist. Conscience does not show us in what it consists. But conscience consists in the resonance of that fundament, which is agitating in the depths of the human spirit.
I said that this should strictly be called voice for a very simple reason. We have been accustomed to think, mainly because of the influence of the Greek tradition, that intelligence has no other characteristic but the visual. This is a very narrow limitation. Not all forms of intelligence have to be formally visual. Take the phenomenon of sound. One can listen to a melody, and in that melody sounds are present to my conscience as colors to sight. There is no doubt about that. Except there is a difference with respect to sight. In sight, things themselves with their colors are present to the eyes, while in the case of sound we encounter a peculiar situation. Sound remits constitutively to the instruments of orchestration that compose the melody, which however, as instruments, are not present to the ear, but rather the melody is. That is an auditive type of intellection of reality: sound remits constitutively {66} to the instrument, which is active under it, still, that instrument is not evident except in its auditive resonance. That is the reason why, strictly speaking, it is an auditive intellection. Intellection, because it knows reality intellectively in some form; merely auditive, because reality is not present except in a particular way, only in the resonance it has.
Thus, in our problem we find ourselves in a strictly identical situation. In the voice of conscience we do not have the fundament in front of our eyes, by virtue of which reality resonates before us in the form of deity: we simply have its resonance, which as a resonance remits physically to that fundament, which resonates in it. That is undeniable. And this resonance is what formally constitutes the voice of conscience. The voice of conscience is nothing but the sonorous palpitation of the fundament, i.e., of the very divinity, in the depths of our conscience, in that pure and simple form of that dictating whose content escapes us for the moment. The enigma acquires then the characteristic of a voice, which remits constitutively to the fundament of deity, to God. Which, in other words, means purely and simply that in what we call the voice of conscience we do not have God himself present, but we do have the palpitation and pulsation of the divinity in the depths of the human spirit. Sometimes the mystics have appealed to a kind of intellection, which is not visual, and have referred to tactile intellection. For example, when John of St. Thomas describes the presence of God in the soul of the mystic, he appeals to the tactile metaphor: someone knocks at the door, but does not make himself present7. {67} Freud thought he had made a great discovery when he suggested this was the mechanism of certain tendencies of conscience. However, it had already been noted centuries ago. Furthermore, I consider not only tactile intellection, but also auditive intellection to play an essential part in our problem. This is the palpitation or pulsation of divinity in the depths of the human spirit, which as a reality and qua reality, makes the characteristic of fundament resonate in the form of deity, to which deity indeed remits as melody remits to the instruments of orchestration. That is the reason why the voice of conscience is not a mere moral phenomenon, but a strictly metaphysical characteristic of the first order, which actualizes itself precisely in the form of an auditive resonance in the religated I as such.
Yet, this does not mean —I was saying— that my reality puts me on the road towards God independently from other things. Here makes its appearance for the second time, the error of thinking that man is the subjective, and the other things are the objective and the real. This is completely false. Man starts by being a reality, and in the voice of conscience, that which speaks or resonates, is reality qua reality in its fundament. Precisely because of that, this reality qua reality is the formal characteristic of everything there is in the universe. In the voice of conscience we find that the resonance of this fundament is not an exclusively human fundament, but the fundament of reality qua reality, i.e., in it are involved all other things, any reality at all. Because of this, {68} man, through that palpitation and pulsation of divinity in the depths of his spirit, sees all realities surrounding him involved in a direction towards God —himself plus all other things— purely and simply by the fact of being realities. Each reality is thus apprehended in a direction to its fundament, towards God. Deity constitutively remits to its fundament, and that remission, actualized in man in the form of the voice of conscience, precisely involves the whole of reality. There is no difference between the human way, and the metaphysical way to reach God. Eo ipso, there is but only one way, the strictly metaphysical, which in the case of man is activated by the voice of conscience, and comprises in its totality all realities surrounding us.
From this point of view God is a real fundament in reality, a fundament of the power of deity of the real, which palpitates in the depths of the human spirit, and inexorably calls for reality, calls for its fundament as seat of deity. Several things are now quite clear: in the first place, that this fundament is in reality. In the second place, that it palpitates in the depths of man in the form of voice of conscience. And in third place, that it hurls man to search for this fundament of reality qua reality, regardless of the type of things upon which this search may be supported. Since this fundament is not given to us in its content, we must search for it. What kind of steps are involved in this search? Men and religions have undertaken several diverse ways.
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1 Cf. Sobre la esencia, op. cit., pp. 104-109, 230-231, 290-292.
2 As we shall see in the next chapter, this classification of the moments of religion was modified by Zubiri in the 1971 seminar about “The theological problem of man: God, religion, Christianity”.
3 The term “molding” is not used systematically in the 1965 seminars.
4 This last section also belongs to the 1965 Barcelona seminar.
5 In the 1965 Madrid seminar Zubiri added: “Yes, it looks like an abstraction. But, What would the Buddhist say for whom there is no other deity than the cosmic-moral Law, which constitutes and regulates the world?”.
6 This appendix offers two texts, which although they exceed the framework of the analysis of the religious fact as such, are useful towards the understanding of the rest of the book. Of course, for a complete treatment of the problem of God, and the access of man to Him one must refer to El hombre y Dios (“Man and God“). The first text is taken from the 1965 Barcelona seminar.
7 “Exinde vero originatur affectus, et fruitio Dei, qua anima habet aliam experientiam de Deo affectivam quasi per modum tactus, quo tangitur anima in interiori potentia voluntatis, fruendo ipsa præsentia Spiritus, et plenitudine divinitatis tangentis, et inflammantis voluntatem, sicut dicitur Cantic. V: Dilectus meus misit manum suam per foramen, et venter meus intremuit ad tactum ejus; anima mea liquefacta est ut locutus est”, in John of St. Thomas, Cursus theologicus in Summam theologicam D. Thomæ, Paris, 1886, vol. VI, q. LXX, no. LXXXIII, p. 632.