{99} (cont’d)

IV

Problematics of fundamentality

The foregoing problematical character is an undeniable fact.

1. At each moment man continues to unfold and develop with the passing of time, through the phenomena which fill this time. Such is, as I mentioned above, the changeableness of life as transcurrence. But human reality, qua personal, has something else besides changeableness: it is restless. This does not have the character of a transcurrence, but the impressing of an enigma: the enigma of being religated. This is the enigma by which the power of the real has captured me. Restlessness is not restlessness in the sense, for example, of the {100} famous and splendid phrase of St. Augustine: Irrequietum cor nostrum Domine donec requiescat in Te (Our heart is restless, Oh Lord, until it rest in Thee). Man is restless in Augustine’s sense because he searches for happiness. In the problem of the fundament this is certainly true, but it is a truth based on something more radical, i.e., it is not primary. What is primary is, that if man is restless vis-a-vis his happiness, he is so because he is restlessness in himself. And if he is in himself restless, it is for a reason much more radical than any aspirations and necessities he may have. Therefore, we are not dealing with the Augustinian type of restlessness, but with a more radical restlessness. Human reality has a life and this life is constitutively restless because the reality in which it is lived is enigmatic. That is why the life of man suffers from restlessness. This restlessness is expressed in two questions quite elementary, but which no one has been able to deny. First of all, there is the question, What is going to become of me? And since this reality that I am, is not given to me, but I have to make it, the question acquires a more urgent sense: What am I going to make of myself? Each human action, as modest as it may be, encompasses this question and is an answer to it. The unity of this making, in view of my personal reality and of this reality as something made, is just what constitutes restlessness. Such is the restlessness of my own reality as already seized by that which is enigmatic in the power of the real. It is not, I repeat, the Augustinian restlessness, but the restlessness of the enigmatic.

This restlessness can be lived in different ways. Man can gloss over this question, but the glossing is just one way to live the restlessness. At the other extreme, the restlessness can be anguish. This anguish {101} would not be possible if man were not restlessness in his own reality. Only in the measure in which man is restless can he be invaded by anguish. There is yet another way of living the restlessness: preoccupation. Of course, it is not necessary that man be preoccupied on each action: if this were so, life would be impossible. But one cannot be preoccupied without being restless. That is why there is a more elemental but inexorable form of living the restlessness, not as preoccupation, but as occupation. Man is occupied in making himself a person. And this, I repeat, is inexorable in each human action. Restlessness understood as such is something which emerges from myself, by the fact that in each action I acquire my relative absolute being. I am absolute in a relative way. And this relativity is the religation. The religation remits us experientially to the power of reality, and, therefore, my own reality is for me something enigmatic. And this enigmatic character is lived as a form of restlessness in each one of the moments of my personal life. This is the first moment of the problematic of fundamentality, determined by the enigma of the religation of the power of the real.

2. This restlessness emerging from myself has in a certain way its counterpart, so to speak, in another phenomenon which is also undeniable. In each instant of his life man possesses, in principle, that which is called the voice of conscience. It is the voice which in one form or another dictates to man what he has to do or not to do. It is not the same as restlessness, clearly, and besides, it is not a voice which solves all problems; but it is a real phenomenon. Generally, this voice is referred to only when dealing with duties. But that is insufficient because, in reality, the voice is talking to us in every {102} act. What we must ask here is, in what does this voice consist?

Where does this voice come from? Clearly, it comes from the depths of myself. But, in what does this depth consist? It is not, of course, what could be understood by depth in the current “Depth Psychology”. Because whatever this psychological depth may be, such a depth could not constitute the voice of conscience unless it came from a depth in a more radical sense. The psychological depth is at best a qualification of a more radical depth. Therefore, my radical depth is the absolute character of my reality. And the voice that arises from this depth is a voice primarily because the relative absolute is mine, I am myself and not another. Here, precisely, is where the voice of conscience arises.

This voice dictates something to me. What is this dictation and what does it dictate? The voice of conscience can be clear, obscure, even variable, because this voice will probably say to a European different things than those it might say to a Chinese or a Japanese (I do not know). And in all these dictates, what the voice of conscience dictates as something which arises from the depth of my own reality, is just a form of reality which I must adopt. In this is what the dictate of the voice of conscience formally consists.

The voice of conscience dictates in an unappelable and unquestionable manner. Certainly this dictate is not always univocal and, so to speak, equally sonorous. But it always tends to take on an unquestionable mantle. One might even think that this is what Kant called the “Categorical Imperative”. But that interpretation is false, according to my point of view, for three reasons. In the first place, the voice is not an imperative in the Kantian sense. Kant conceives and enunciates his ideas in a propositional form, in the form of {103} a judgement, which greatly damaged his philosophy. In the second place, Kant always thought that this imperative was subjective, even considered transcendentally to the fullest, but subjective. And this because Kant always confused the subjectual with the subjective. Everything subjective can be subjectual, but not everything subjectual is subjective. “Subjectual” means that the thing one is talking about is a sub-jectum, but not that it is subjective. (We leave aside now the fact that human reality, as I have detailed, is not even subjectual, but a substantive system). Finally, it is not the case of a categorical dictate considered objectively, but of a voice qua voice.

And thus, we must state that the voice of conscience is first and foremost a voice. And it is a form of sentient intelligence. Reality is what is de suyo, that which is apprehended. And this de suyo is quite rich. Each sense has its mode of apprehending the real. The eleven senses^[1] distinguish themselves radically, not just by the content of the sensed quality, but by the mode of apprehending this content as something de suyo. They are, if I may be permitted the expression, eleven ways of apprehending something de suyo. Sight makes the thing present in its eidos, tact as mere presence. This tactile mode is in the intellective sense proper, for example, to the presence of God in the mystic, etc. The kinesthetic sense, like that of orientation and equilibrium, gives us the reality as “towards”. This does not mean a sensing “toward reality”, but that reality itself is sensed in the form of “towards”, it is reality “in towards”. We are bluntly habituated to think that to apprehend something consists in having it in front of ourselves; that is the tyranny of sight. There are, as I have said, multiple ways of apprehending the real and one of them is apprehending it as “towards”. Therefore, {104} in hearing, the sound is apprehended certainly as something de suyo, as de suyo as color in sight. But a thing itself is not apprehended as present to hearing in the same way as it is to sight. Reality is something of which we are “announced” only. Hearing refers to what sounds; because of this it is announcement in the most rigorous sense of the term. The voice of conscience is just like an announcing remission to the form of reality. And that of which it is an announcement is reality. From this point of view man is the voice of reality. The voice of conscience is nothing but the clamor of reality as the root of the absolute.

And this voice, this clamor, this announcement, is not just a communiqué; it “clamors”, that is, hurls us physically, not only intentionally, towards the power of the real as enigma. It is the voice of the problematic of the enigma of the real, towards which we are hurled. It is in this precise sense that we are physically hurled towards the real in its reality, by the voice of consciousness. It is yet another radical moment of the problematics of fundamentality.

Still, restlessness and the voice of conscience are not the only moments of that problematic.

3. Man finds himself, then, inexorably hurled in the direction of having to determine the form of reality which he has to adopt. This determination is just what constitutes volition. As an animal, man tends to adopt a variety of forms. But as animal of realities, this tendency is a tendency towards forms of reality. The intrinsic unity of tendency and real determination is thus a sentient volition. To sentient intelligence there corresponds a sentient will which consists in a tending to a determinate form of reality. How does {105} reality comport volition? In what does this volition consist? In what does that which is wanted consist? These are three questions which demand our attention.

a) For the effects of radical volition, its terminus does not present itself as an object or thing; rather, its mode of actually being present is by fundamenting our relatively absolute reality. It is not as if a thing “is” present; rather its mode of being present is “to fundament”. We are dealing, in fact, with reality as an enigma. And as such, the presence of reality means to fundament, not only materially, so to speak, but formally as well. It is not a reality-object, but reality-fundament. Therefore, it is not a thing which begins by being a real thing, to which is added that it is also founding; rather, its own mode of reality, its mode of being de suyo, is to fundament, to be fundamenting. With respect to a reality-object (I beg forgiveness for the use of the term “object” in order to provide clarity to the phrase), this reality is already understood in and by itself as a reality and nothing more, before serving as a fundament. The reality-fundament is a reality (if it were not it would not be fundament), but its mode of actualization is pure fundamenting. Then we understand that we may be physically, not only turned, but “hurled” towards it. Therefore, there are not two moments, one of reality and another of fundamentality, but only one of “reality-fundament”.

b) On account of this, I am inexorably hurled by fundamentality itself to adopt a form of reality. As this form has to be optatively determined as a possibility, the determination is adoption or appropriation of a possibility. And this is what formally constitutes volition: adoption or appropriation of {106} a possibility of a form of reality. All volition is volition of a possibility of a form of reality.

c) At its root, in what does this volition of a form of reality consist? It is clearly an adoption, though not arbitrary, and it consists of having the fundamenting reality actualized. This radical will is not will to live, but will to personal reality. It encompases my whole personal reality. Therefore it is not primarily about living, but about being real. It is will to reality. This reality is actualized in my intellection and qua actualized in it, is just what we call “truth”. The will to reality is will to truth. What is this will to truth? Truth has various moments. One is the most classic: an act of intellection which manifests reality. And since we are dealing here with my form of reality, it could be thought that truth means authenticity. Will to truth would be will to authenticity. This is what Nietzsche canonized: Wille zur Wahrheit. But this is insufficient because there is a moment of will to truth which is prior to the will to authenticity itself, and that in turn is so, because authenticity is authenticity as expression of a reality. With this we descend to a deeper stratum: to the will to be a reality merely actualized in my intellection. This is what I have called real truth. It is truth because it is an intellective actualization of reality, and it is real because what is actualized is the real itself as something de suyo. Truth is not identical to reality, but if I pay attention in the actualization of the real to the actualization itself, as differing from that which is actualized, I shall have truth: this is the real truth. This real truth has different moments.

One, which we encountered a little further up {107} when I mentioned that religation is ostensiveness. Real truth is, above all, ostensive of reality. This is the moment to which the West has given most of its attention since the time of the Greeks.

Real truth has a second moment to which Greece paid no attention. This is the moment according to which something is real if it corresponds to what it promises: such is truth as fidelity. That was the sense of truth for the Semites. While for a Greek truth is to be thus, for a Semite truth is so be it (amen, from emeth, truth). Concerning man truth is security.

Yet, there is in real truth a third moment with a character in a certain way gerundial: real truth is what “is really effectively and actually being”: this is the moment of effectivity.

Any real truth has three moments, but sometimes one is more noticeable than the others. The unity of these moments is what constitutes real truth. The volition of truth is intrinsically and “at one and the same time”, manifestation, fidelity and effectivity.

The reality-fundament as such is real truth to these three moments. Man today is in a greater need than ever of attending to real truth. It is a will to truth which desires to discover more real truth each time, that is, more manifestation, more security, more effectivity of the real. And this real truth is real in all the modes of reality, among them that according to the “towards”. We are, then, hurled “towards”: in and by real truth, towards the real itself. Precisely because of this man has to adopt some form of reality among all of those possible. And this is not only an obligation, but a fact; not only the fact that man is in need, but the constitutive fact of the personal reality of man. In {108} each of his acts man carries out a volition of real truth. In it he has to adopt a form of reality. Consequently, this form is optative. Hence the will to real truth shapes itself as search. Search for what? A search for how real things fit into “the” reality in order to opt for a form of reality. We need to investigate the way each thing articulates “its” reality with “the” reality. And this is the fundamentality in which my personal reality founds itself in reality, in the reality-fundament. To employ Bergson’s expression, this experience can be called “metaphysical experience”, an experience of a search for a fundament, for a fundamentality of the power of the real; an experience that with greater precision I will call theological experience. It is not theologic experience. I shall deal with theologic experience in the Third Part of the book. Let us not confuse the theological with the theologic. The theological is what concerns the turning towards the problem of God. The theologic is what concerns God himself.


* * *


Let us summarize. We sought to learn in this Chapter how one becomes a man. One becomes a man by making oneself, in one’s own actions, agent, actor and author of them. By one’s own actions man is with real things, but where one is with them is in reality. “The” real things are not “the” reality; they are only vectors of reality. Being in reality is how man makes himself a personal reality, a reality relatively absolute. Reality is, from this point of view, the ultimate foundation, possibilitating {109} and impelling, of my personal reality. This fundamentality of the real is what constitutes the power of the real, the dominance of the real qua real. And this dominance dominates my personal reality, not through causality, but through seizing. This seizure is what formally constitutes what I have called “religation”. Religation is reality capturing me. And this religation is not a material bond, but the mere dominance of seizing, of a power of the real actualized in my sentient intellection. Therefore, religation actualizes in my mind the profile of the power of the real which has seized me. Religation, in fact, is primarily something not conceptive, but physical, something experiential; secondly, it is something manifestative of the power of the real; but it remains enigmatic because it does not make us see what comprises the difference as well as the unity of “this” reality (i.e., that of each individual thing) with “the” reality. To make oneself a person is the manifestative experience of an enigmatic power. The power of the real is actualized as something enigmatic. And since this power is a fundament of my personal reality, it follows that the making of myself as a person in my actions is something problematic. This problematism shows itself as restlessness, as the voice of conscience, and as volition to real truth. This truth has the three moments of ostensiveness, faithfulness and effectiveness. Therefore, the restlessness which the voice of conscience dictates to me is will to real truth enigmatically apprehended. Consequently, we must proceed by searching. To make oneself a person is a search. It is definitely a search for the fundament of my relative absolute being. Every search is problematic when that which is searched for is enigmatic.

As we make ourselves persons, in religation we search to clarify, not conceptively, but physically {110} and experientially, the foundation of the enigmatic radical unity of the reality of each individual thing, and “the” reality. This is a problematic of fundamentality, and its articulation concerns religation itself. And this is because, depending upon the mode in which “the” reality is articulated in each real thing, the human attitude likewise will be different, as will the horizon of possibilities, which opens itself to intellection, and by which a person may acquire its own figure of reality. This articulation is a moment of any real thing; it is a moment of fundamentality which thus constitutes the fundamentality of my personal reality. It is a moment of fundamentality because it is not a reality-object, but a reality-fundament. This is what we search for. The reality-fundament is the solution of the enigma of reality and of my personal reality.

This problematic of the reality-fundament is not something which takes us to the problem of God, but is formally the problem of God. What religation manifests experientially and enigmatically is God as a problem. The problem of God belongs, therefore, formally and constitutively to the constitution of my own person insofar as it has to make its own reality, that is, its own absolute figure of being “with” things while actually being “in” reality. It is a problem which belongs to the dimension of my person religated intrinsically and formally to the power of the real. This power happens in my life as an experience of reality qua manifested, faithful and effective. Therefore, God constitutes an intrinsically and formally constitutive problem, qua problem, of the structure of my own personal reality. It is not an arbitrary problem.

Because of this, the problem of God is not {111} formally a problem of the beyond. That is another question with which we are not dealing; just the opposite: because the will to real truth and the problem of God inscribed in it are a dimension which constitutes the possibility of my very existence in reality, and supports my being in this world. The problem of God is a problem which radically and formally affects the constitution of the human person and, therefore, is not a problem which formally concerns a “beyond”. The problem of God, I repeat, concerns —precisely and above all— the reality of this world and our personal reality in it. Consequently, the problem of God is not the investigation of something which is “outside” the world, but something which is precisely in the reality which surrounds us, in my own personal reality. To this something we are all problematically, but inexorably hurled in order to be able to opt for the absolute figure of our being.

In what, radically, does this reality-fundament consist, towards which I am hurled and which I must search for?

That is the Second Part of this investigation. In the First I have tried to clarify some concepts which refer to what man is as a reality. Now we find ourselves hurled from man to God: this is the problem of Divine reality.

In order to pose it adequately we need a nominal definition of that which is sought for; otherwise we would not be able to search for it. What is understood by God, regardless of whether one accepts His reality or not? At the beginning of this investigation we shall call “God” the possibilitating and impelling ultimate fundament of the articulation —let us call it that— of the real things in “the” reality. But this is not sufficient. I will also need to see that {112} what I have found in my search is not only something real which I call God, but that this which is real is precisely God qua God. That is what we shall try to show in the Second Part of our investigation.

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^[1] (Tr. note: no relation to the classical senses, five external and six internal) ^