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Transcendental Thomism: Realism Rejected

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Transcendental Thomism: Realism Rejected Transcendental Thomism: Realism Rejected Christopher M. Cullen, S.J. In his book The Peasant of the Garonne Maritain speaks of what has been one of the central tenets of the realist tradition from the beginning of philosophy­ that the mind attains reality: Greek reason was able to become aware of that glory of the mind which is knowing and of the authentic relation between the mind and the extra-mental being of things ... It was able to see that the human intellect, in identifying itself immaterially, intentionaliter, with the being of things, truly reaches that which exists outside our minds ... 1 Transcendental Thornism in some profoundly significant ways abandons this tenet. The adherents of this branch of the Neo-scholastic movement, begun by the Belgian Jesuit, Joseph Marechal (1878-1944), nobly attempt to beat Kant at his own game; for they seek to establish an apodictic metaphysics of being by using a subjective starting point. But they have, in fact, read Thomas with the eyes of German idealists, and in so doing they have introduced first principles within the Thomistic synthesis that fundamentally alter and transform it in idealist and subjectivist directions. Hence, it is the argument of this paper that a metaphysics of being cannot be based on a transcendental, subjective starting point. The work of the Transcendental Thomists constitutes a latter-day verification of the validity of Gilson's comment in The Unity of Philosophical Experience: "In the first place, philosophers are free to lay down their own set of principles, but once this is done, they no longer think as they wish-they think as they can."2 1 Jacques Maritain, The Peasant of the Garonne, trans. Michael Cuddihy and Elizabeth Hughes (New York: Hold, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), p. 18. 2 Etienne Gilson, The Unity ofPhilosophical Experience (New York: Charles Scribner's 72 TRANSCENDENTAL THOMISM: REALISM REJECTED 73 In this paper, I will do three things. First, I will examine the understanding of metaphysics and being found in the work of two leading Transcendental Thomists-Karl Rahner and Joseph Donceel. I will draw out and discuss six doctrines in particular which I think illustrate the idealist and subjectivistic nature ofTranscendental Thomism. Secondly, I will present a critique of these doctrines. Thirdly, I will argue that the metaphysical doctrines of the Transcendentalists constitute a rejection of realism. Rahner is, perhaps, the leading Transcendental Thomist in history, though some might make a case for Lonergan (Lonergan requires a separate treatment). Rahner presents his fundamental metaphysics in his doctoral dissertation in philosophy, Spirit in the World ( 1939). Donceel was a Belgian born Jesuit who was a student of Marechal. His thought became influential in this country after the Second World War. He gave Rahner's ideas a much wider audience than they might have otherwise enjoyed by explaining them in more accessible language in his text books. Both thinkers accept Kant's definition of the transcendental method: "I call every knowledge transcendental, which occupies itself not so much with objects, but rather with our way of knowing objects insofar as this is to be possible a priori."3 There are six metaphysical doctrines that will illustrate the idealism and subjectivism of Transcendental Thomism: (I) man as questioning is the certain starting point for metaphysics; (2) man is already with being in its totality; (3) being is subjectivity; ( 4) the intellect pre-apprehends Infinite Esse; (5) the agent intellect is the power of forming the first principles of transcendental validity; (6) the first principles function as a priori conditions for knowledge. These metaphysical doctrines constitute a rejection of realism. This position is so very different from realism that it cannot accurately be called either Thomism or realism. Fr. Robert Henle, S.J., has it precisely right when he says that transcendental Thomism is a "Christianized version of German idealism" and "has no philosophical right to be called 'Thomism. "'4 TRANSCENDENTAL THOMISM The Starting Point of Metaphysics: Man Questions and Is Already with Being Rahner's work Spirit in the World (1939) examines St. Thomas's metaphysics Sons, 1948), p. 302. 3 Kant quoted in Emerich Coreth, Metaphysics, trans. Joseph Donceel (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), p. 35. 4 Robert 1. Henle, S .J ., "Transcendental Thomism: A Critical Assessment," in One Hundred Years of Thomism, ed. Victor B. Brezik, C.S.B. (Houston, Texas: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1981 ), pp. 92 and II 0. 74 CULLEN of knowledge. In this work Rahner discusses the foundation of metaphysics. He argues that the absolute beginning for philosophy, because it is the absolute irreducible human certitude, is that "Man questions-necessarily."5 He explains, furthermore, that the point of departure is the metaphysical question. What is this question? It is the very fact that man can ask about being: For in fact, to put it first of all quite formally, the metaphysical question is that question which in a final and radical sharpening of man's questioning turns upon itself as such and thereby turns upon the presuppositions which are operative in itself; it is the question turned consciously upon itself, the transcendental question, which does not merely place something asked about in question, but the one questioning and his question itself, and thereby absolutely everything. 6 This transcendental question asks about "absolutely everything ... being in its totality." But Rahner then asks, what is the point of departure for this question? He answers that the very need to question is the only point of departure for the metaphysical question. This need to question is the only point of departure for the metaphysical question that has its foundation in itself. But it does not start out from this point in such a way that it leaves the starting point behind after the first step, never again to look back.7 In posing this question, however, Rahner also argues that man is already with being in its totality. 8 If man were not, he could not ask about being. In other words, he must already know of being in its totality to ask about it. "What is absolutely unknowable cannot be asked about."9 Furthermore, Rahner is saying that metaphysics "takes its departure from nothing, insofar as it already comprehends the whole in order to start out on its way." 10 But this nothing is not an empty void which man can arbitrarily fill. It is "the unambiguous need to be able and to have to encounter being in its totality in his questioning." 11 The starting point of metaphysics is questioning man who is already with being in its totality: This gives the starting point of metaphysics a peculiar duality 5 Karl Rahner, S.J., Spirit in the World, trans. William Dych, S.J. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), p. 58. 6 Ibid. (Emphasis added) 7 Ibid., pp. 59-60. 8 Ibid., p. 60. 9 Ibid., p. 68. 10 Ibid., p. 60. II Ibid., p. 62. TRANSCENDENTAL THOMISM: REALISM REJECTED 75 and a unity at once: the starting point is questioning man, who as such is already with being in its totality ... this starting point is a question and no answer reaches out beyond the horizon which the question has already set as a limit beforehand. 12 In an article discussing Transcendental Thomism, Donceel defends Rahner's presentation of the starting point of metaphysics. He begins with the "pragmatic" objects with which we come in daily contact. (By pragmatic he means those which we deal with in day-to-day activities.) He argues that they can all be reduced to the formula "Something which is X." He then argues that the "X" is the information which comes from the senses while the "something which" is the contribution of our intellect. 13 The contribution of our intellect, the something which, is equivalent to "a being that." This "something which" or "a being that" contribution of our intellect contains implicitly the whole of metaphysics. Donceel even says, "For Transcendental Thomism ... being is contributed a priori by the intellect itself.'' 14 Being comes to us through the senses but in no way from the senses. Man has an "inborn" virtual knowledge of being. "It may be known explicitly only through and in sense knowledge." 15 Donceel takes this to its natural conclusion that metaphysics is ontologically prior to all really human knowledge and is a condition of its possibility: "Far from being a science which man acquires from experience, it is one which he discovers in himself, which he brings to all his experience, which allows him to have any human experience at all." 16 What happens in metaphysics then is that this science passes from unthematic and implicit to thematic and explicit knowledge. "Likewise metaphysics is the formal cause of our human knowledge." 17 It is "the light" which the mind uses in all its activities, as Donceel says at one point. 1x 12 Ibid., p. 61. 13 Joseph Donceel, S.J., "Transcendental Thomism." The Monist 58 (January 1974). p. 75. 14 Ibid., p. 76. 15 Ibid., p. 77. 16 /bid. 17 Ibid., p. 79. 18 Coreth also agrees with Rahner that the starting point for metaphysics is the question itself. He says, "Hence our starting point cannot be merely empirical datum ... The correct starting point is the question itself The question itself cannot be challenged or questioned, it presupposes nothing, its takes nothing for granted" (Emerich Coreth, Metaphysics, pp. 38-39). Coreth further explains: "Man is the questioner, the inquirer, the wonderer, who discovers being more in the act of questioning than in any definite content of the mind, because being always extends beyond any knowledge ..
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