(this is the Reflection Paper i submited in our class in Theology of Grace under Rev. Fr. Ramon Echica, STD)
Gloria Dei, Homo Vigilans:
Waking up to Grace in Rahner and Levinas
By Michael Purcell
I. Synopsis
This articles recognizes the contribution of Karl Rahner and tries to explicate the problems and the solutions offered by him in the language of Emmanuel Levinas not by translation but by means of a new grammar. A Levinas-inspired reflection on the phenomenology of human existence as an awakening might be able to offer an insight into the relationship between nature and grace in terms of wakefulness and awaking; and for such one can say that “the glory of God is a person fully awake.”
Traditionally, grace is seen as the pure external degree of God commanding the acceptance of the supernatural, a decree which continues to be a purely exterior divine ordination merely disturbs. A person in the present economy without grace is equal on this view to the person of pure nature. With this, Henri de Lubac made an objection stating that a person manifests a natural desire for God. However, this raised fierce controversy regarding the relationship between nature and grace and how one can, in the light of natural desire, maintain the gratuity of grace.
Now came Rahner with his response and solution. Rahner asserts that the hypothetical notion of nature is a secondary matter. Historical human nature is the capax Die, de Lubac fails to weight sufficiently the possibility that humanity, de facto called into existence for grace. By making the ordination to grace part of the constitution of human nature as such, no other destiny is possible. However, this still leaves a problem of the gratuity of grace. Since we cannot think of a person without grace if we grant that the existential of human nature as consisting in the inner and unconditional reference to grace and beatific vision. Grace then here is conceived as exacted; wherein the teachings tell us that grace is absolutely unexacted. Rahner answers this in four points: first, that a person has a perduring ability and congeniality to grace, secondly, this existential belongs to a person as an unexacted gift; thirdly, the recipient of God’s self-communication is conscious that his existential is not owned to him/her and is unexcited by him/her the real person. And lastly, a person has an openness for this supernatural existence (potentia oboedientalialis) which is always an inner ordination is conditional. Given these, a person finds himself/herself always and already “subject to the influence of the supernatural existence (if not but grace). Pure nature for Rahner would only be a intellectual concept, a remainder concept.
Now for Emmanuel Levinas, like the concept of pure nature as a “remainder concept, he also has his so-called “pagan existence.” The focus here would be Levinas’ idea on subjectivity as awakening to grace. Subjectivity for Levinas is “the folding back of being upon itself, which opens not only self-reflection, but onto an other whose proximity is outwith consciousness, cognition and comprehension.
As if waking the subject emerges into the light as consciousness and wrest itself from anonymity, but escape is never complete. This impossibility of evading existence is seen in the phenomenon of insomnia, the sleeplessness which is not yet consciousness but rather vigilance. To escape from this insomnia, one must be waken up and as conscious, find an escape from this anonymity. Everything in the subject is here and here provides no means of salvation. It can only come from elsewhere from the other. The inability of self-redemption and the need for an other is term grace; the fact that the subject cannot waken itself to the true life of the sociality which redeems it from the solitary burden of its own existence and signification but requires an other is grace.
According to Levinas, in assuming existence, a conscious subject enters into two levels of awakenings, first waking from the anonymity and enters into a relationship with the world. This will to the exposure of the inadequacy of evidence in consciousness and thus the presence within consciousness of what is other than consciousness, thus leading to a second awakening i.e. intersubjectivity, which shows the identity of the consciousness not only to be compromised by the other, but to be compromised by the personal other who awakens the ego to life otherwise than knowledge and presence.
Levinas use the phenomenological reduction of Husserl as a method and by which reveals the second level of awakening, which is not coming to self-consciousness, but awakening of the other in me, which might be term as grace. Grace here does not remain abstract and notional, but rather grace-incarnate. One can develop the awakening to grace as grace.
Thus, awakening to the intersubjective is also awakening to God, “the very event of transcendence in life…” and the distinction between transcendence towards other man and transcendence towards God must not be made too quickly. The other is indispensable for my relation to God, for there can be no knowledge of God outwith social relation and vice versa.
Levinas deeper transcendental reflection on subjectivity reveals the subject to be constituted intersubjectivity, that is, in a relationship of responsibility-for-the Other, a relationship sustained by the illeity of the Other which opens not only on to the whole humanity, but ultimately to God.
Bibliography:
Purcell, Michael. “Gloria Dei, Homo Vigilans: Waking up to Grace in Rahner and Levinas.” Louvain Studies 21 (1996): 229-260.
II. Critical reflection
I cannot help but mention of the highly philosophical and the lofty technicalities of this article that an ordinary person without any philosophical and theological background would not dare to enter its treacherous grounds. Nevertheless, it was able to explicate what the author is trying to attain.
Categorically, this article is of importance in the field of philological investigation, since it would give way to a new understanding of Rahner in the language of Levinas. There and then, one can assume really that they are both talking of the same thing but expressed in different terms. Given these terms, I appreciated how the author systematically organize the flow of the discussion and how he was able to have the two ideas merge perfectly to attain the goal of this article.
One thing I discern from this article is that, albeit its overly high and complex philosophical discourses, that it is still deeply rooted in the level of human experience. The language Rahner and Levinas used in their philosophical and theological enterprising (and the author itself) may be highly technical but it would still be grounded in their own existential experience. On thing that stuck me about the article is the “subjectivity” in relation to “intersubjectivity.” The true meaning of oneself lies in our relationship to the other. Such other does not mean only God but of other people also. Our knowledge of ourselves and of others relies one God and our knowledge of God lies in our relationship with others. A person finds God in his/her in search of his very being and God is always encountered in our relationships and dealings with other people.
I was struck by the statement: “God is accessible as the counterpart of the justice I render to my neighbor because in the opening of illeity one finds the trace of God.” This means since God is part of my life wherein I have my being in him and his being in me. This would also entails in our relationship with other people.
I believe that it takes the grace of God to know oneself and it takes also the same grace to know God in other people. the same grace that would move us to be of service to other. The challenge here if very concrete and urgent, that the face of God, the imago dei, is part of our being. It is an undeniable fact. Precisely, what we do with our lives and how we related to other people would eventually be also our dealing with God.
Gloria Dei, Homo Vigilans:
Waking up to Grace in Rahner and Levinas
By Michael Purcell
I. Synopsis
This articles recognizes the contribution of Karl Rahner and tries to explicate the problems and the solutions offered by him in the language of Emmanuel Levinas not by translation but by means of a new grammar. A Levinas-inspired reflection on the phenomenology of human existence as an awakening might be able to offer an insight into the relationship between nature and grace in terms of wakefulness and awaking; and for such one can say that “the glory of God is a person fully awake.”
Traditionally, grace is seen as the pure external degree of God commanding the acceptance of the supernatural, a decree which continues to be a purely exterior divine ordination merely disturbs. A person in the present economy without grace is equal on this view to the person of pure nature. With this, Henri de Lubac made an objection stating that a person manifests a natural desire for God. However, this raised fierce controversy regarding the relationship between nature and grace and how one can, in the light of natural desire, maintain the gratuity of grace.
Now came Rahner with his response and solution. Rahner asserts that the hypothetical notion of nature is a secondary matter. Historical human nature is the capax Die, de Lubac fails to weight sufficiently the possibility that humanity, de facto called into existence for grace. By making the ordination to grace part of the constitution of human nature as such, no other destiny is possible. However, this still leaves a problem of the gratuity of grace. Since we cannot think of a person without grace if we grant that the existential of human nature as consisting in the inner and unconditional reference to grace and beatific vision. Grace then here is conceived as exacted; wherein the teachings tell us that grace is absolutely unexacted. Rahner answers this in four points: first, that a person has a perduring ability and congeniality to grace, secondly, this existential belongs to a person as an unexacted gift; thirdly, the recipient of God’s self-communication is conscious that his existential is not owned to him/her and is unexcited by him/her the real person. And lastly, a person has an openness for this supernatural existence (potentia oboedientalialis) which is always an inner ordination is conditional. Given these, a person finds himself/herself always and already “subject to the influence of the supernatural existence (if not but grace). Pure nature for Rahner would only be a intellectual concept, a remainder concept.
Now for Emmanuel Levinas, like the concept of pure nature as a “remainder concept, he also has his so-called “pagan existence.” The focus here would be Levinas’ idea on subjectivity as awakening to grace. Subjectivity for Levinas is “the folding back of being upon itself, which opens not only self-reflection, but onto an other whose proximity is outwith consciousness, cognition and comprehension.
As if waking the subject emerges into the light as consciousness and wrest itself from anonymity, but escape is never complete. This impossibility of evading existence is seen in the phenomenon of insomnia, the sleeplessness which is not yet consciousness but rather vigilance. To escape from this insomnia, one must be waken up and as conscious, find an escape from this anonymity. Everything in the subject is here and here provides no means of salvation. It can only come from elsewhere from the other. The inability of self-redemption and the need for an other is term grace; the fact that the subject cannot waken itself to the true life of the sociality which redeems it from the solitary burden of its own existence and signification but requires an other is grace.
According to Levinas, in assuming existence, a conscious subject enters into two levels of awakenings, first waking from the anonymity and enters into a relationship with the world. This will to the exposure of the inadequacy of evidence in consciousness and thus the presence within consciousness of what is other than consciousness, thus leading to a second awakening i.e. intersubjectivity, which shows the identity of the consciousness not only to be compromised by the other, but to be compromised by the personal other who awakens the ego to life otherwise than knowledge and presence.
Levinas use the phenomenological reduction of Husserl as a method and by which reveals the second level of awakening, which is not coming to self-consciousness, but awakening of the other in me, which might be term as grace. Grace here does not remain abstract and notional, but rather grace-incarnate. One can develop the awakening to grace as grace.
Thus, awakening to the intersubjective is also awakening to God, “the very event of transcendence in life…” and the distinction between transcendence towards other man and transcendence towards God must not be made too quickly. The other is indispensable for my relation to God, for there can be no knowledge of God outwith social relation and vice versa.
Levinas deeper transcendental reflection on subjectivity reveals the subject to be constituted intersubjectivity, that is, in a relationship of responsibility-for-the Other, a relationship sustained by the illeity of the Other which opens not only on to the whole humanity, but ultimately to God.
Bibliography:
Purcell, Michael. “Gloria Dei, Homo Vigilans: Waking up to Grace in Rahner and Levinas.” Louvain Studies 21 (1996): 229-260.
II. Critical reflection
I cannot help but mention of the highly philosophical and the lofty technicalities of this article that an ordinary person without any philosophical and theological background would not dare to enter its treacherous grounds. Nevertheless, it was able to explicate what the author is trying to attain.
Categorically, this article is of importance in the field of philological investigation, since it would give way to a new understanding of Rahner in the language of Levinas. There and then, one can assume really that they are both talking of the same thing but expressed in different terms. Given these terms, I appreciated how the author systematically organize the flow of the discussion and how he was able to have the two ideas merge perfectly to attain the goal of this article.
One thing I discern from this article is that, albeit its overly high and complex philosophical discourses, that it is still deeply rooted in the level of human experience. The language Rahner and Levinas used in their philosophical and theological enterprising (and the author itself) may be highly technical but it would still be grounded in their own existential experience. On thing that stuck me about the article is the “subjectivity” in relation to “intersubjectivity.” The true meaning of oneself lies in our relationship to the other. Such other does not mean only God but of other people also. Our knowledge of ourselves and of others relies one God and our knowledge of God lies in our relationship with others. A person finds God in his/her in search of his very being and God is always encountered in our relationships and dealings with other people.
I was struck by the statement: “God is accessible as the counterpart of the justice I render to my neighbor because in the opening of illeity one finds the trace of God.” This means since God is part of my life wherein I have my being in him and his being in me. This would also entails in our relationship with other people.
I believe that it takes the grace of God to know oneself and it takes also the same grace to know God in other people. the same grace that would move us to be of service to other. The challenge here if very concrete and urgent, that the face of God, the imago dei, is part of our being. It is an undeniable fact. Precisely, what we do with our lives and how we related to other people would eventually be also our dealing with God.
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