Mirroring Truth a Theological Appropriation of Imagination Along with Speculation Joris Geldhof

Mirroring Truth A Theological Appropriation of Imagination along with Speculation Joris Geldhof

Abstract. — Historically, both philosophers and theologians have mistrusted imagination. This article calls this mistrust into question. It is argued that theology – in its constant effort to illuminate truth through understanding – can be served very adequately by utilising the imaginative powers of speculation and the speculative powers of the imagination. In order to support this argument, this article first presents a brief overview of the historical understanding of imagination and speculation. Then, the article presents several justifications of theology’s use of speculation and imagination. Next, the theologians Franz Xaver von Baader and Johannes Evangelist von Kuhn are examined in order to support the claim that speculative theology is important in the search for theological truth. Finally, the article explains why and how the imagination can be understood as a speculative faculty and how relying on imagination ‘as’ speculation can be beneficial for theology.

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.1 Wie aber können unsere Philosophen und Theologen uns einen klaren Begriff des Bildes Gottes geben, da sie über das Bild (imago) und das Imaginiren zu keinem klaren Verständ- nisse gekommen sind […]?2

In the doctrine of human capacities it is generally taken for granted that reason strongly differs from imagination. Reason is said to guarantee the most reliable and direct access to justified insights, whereas the

1. 2 Cor 3:18. 2. Franz X. von Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik 5, in Sämtliche Werke, Bd. IX, 199: “How can our philosophers and theologians give us a clear notion of God’s image, if they have not acquired a clear conception of the image (imago) and of the act of imagining?” – All translations from German texts in this article are originally mine (J.G.).

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imagination is often downplayed or dismissed as a bundle of wild fanta- sies, incapable of grounding norms and ideas. Due to its focus on pictures and stories, the imagination would have less epistemic quality; knowledge is by preference only delivered through the intellect. A general mistrust towards the imagination and imaginative thinking has been prevalent in the history of Western theological and philosophical thought, but the time has come to enfeeble the reasons behind the manifold biases against the imagination and to change the basic attitude of suspicion and disdain.3 In this contribution, I not only challenge the traditional mistrust towards the imagination but I also make a case for speculation. More specifically, I argue that the same pejorative bias against the imagination adversely affects the capacity of speculation and speculative thinking and this paper will investigate how these biases are intertwined. In any case, theology and its perennial attempt to lay bare truth through understanding can be served very adequately by holding on to the imaginative powers of speculation and the speculative powers of the imagination. To express my ideas on the topic as clearly as possible, I have opted for a fourfold structure. In the first section, I delve into the history of ideas and try to evaluate the common fate of imagination and speculation. I also present working definitions of both these capacities and connect these thoughts with the model of a romantic concordant thinking, which I have previously discussed.4 Secondly, I outline several reasons why theology should display a genuine interest in speculation and the imagination. In this context, I will refer to the liturgy as the primary bearer of Christian belief contents. The third part of this contribution then consists in the analysis of the work of two theologians who ardently defended the capacity of speculation and its importance for theology’s search after truth. Both having close relations to what has become known as the Catholic Tübingen School, Franz Xaver von Baader (1765-1842) and Johannes Evangelist von Kuhn (1806-1887) developed an elaborate speculative theology, the reestablishment of which might be most

3. Douglas Hedley, Living Forms of the Imagination (London/New York: T & T Clark, 2008). 4. Joris Geldhof, “Pro Veritate: A Case for a Method of Concordance in Theol- ogy,” New Blackfriars 90 (2009) 303-321; “Ways of Finding Truth: A Proposal for a Method of Concordance in Systematic Theology,” Orthodoxy: Process and Product, ed. Lieven Boeve, Mathijs Lamberigts, Terrence Merrigan, Maarten Wisse, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 227 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009) 231-256. The basis for this idea was laid in my Revelation, Reason and Reality: Theological Encoun- ters with Jaspers, Schelling and Baader, Studies in Philosophical Theology, 39 (Leuven: Peeters, 2007).

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interesting in light of contemporary theological discussions about truth- finding. In the final section I explain why and how the capacity of the imagination can be reasonably interpreted as a speculative faculty, and why theology’s efforts and purposes can be met very well by relying on it.

I. Imagination, Speculation, Concordance, and Romanticism

Both the imagination and speculation keep strained relations with reason and the intellect, especially since the emergence of modernity and the paradigmatisation of scientific knowledge. This does not need to be the case, however, at least not according to the theological concordance- epistemology I am developing. The essence of this approach consists in favouring the heart instead of the brain as the basic metaphor for human beings’ cognitive capacities, and hence in an integrative and synthetic view on the variegated ways through which human beings (try to) understand reality and give meaning to their lives. It is assumed that people do not only attain justified knowledge through a cooperation between the senses, as the deliverers of rough material, and the intellect, which thereupon first filters and structures this material, and finally judges. Knowledge is not only constituted through formulating justified propo- sitions but also, e.g., through acquiring insights. Much of the material delivered by the senses is elaborated upon by other faculties as well, which are not always the receivers of this material but also the directors and sometimes even the manipulators.5 This being the case, insight into reality, events and states of affairs is also gained through emotions, impressions, desires, actions steered by the will, imagination, and speculation. If reason is to keep its central and decisive role in the acquisition of knowledge, its scope and function must certainly be enlarged since the cognitive mind is much more than a mere mechan- ical, sense-data-processing unit. It is as this juncture that the imagination and speculation are endowed with a mission. Stated negatively, they should prohibit reason to limit itself to scientific standards or to reduce itself to a controlling mechanism. Put positively, speculation and the imagination should inspire, motivate, enthuse, and at times liberate the human mind, so that

5. What I am suggesting here is that the basic opposition between ‘action’ and ‘passion’ does not completely fit to define the role of, respectively, reason and the senses in the process of acquiring knowledge – although the majority of modern epistemologies seems to presuppose this.

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it is ceaselessly as attentive as possible to whatever it encounters and experiences. In this regard, it is relevant to recall the original meaning of imagination and speculation. Both concepts reveal a special relationship with the eye, sight, and ‘visuality’. The imagination, or Einbildung(skraft), operates with images (Bilder) and is sometimes considered as the capacity to ‘see’ things absent or inexistent. Although this is not entirely false, a much more prudent definition is appropriate, e.g., “the power of form- ing mental images or other concepts not directly derived from sensation.”6 Speculation, for its part, is derived from the Latin verb speculari, which means ‘to look around’ (like guardsmen do). A speculum, moreover, is a mirror; the German word Spiegel is derived from it. Therefore, on the one hand, speculation has always been associated with a relation between the mirroring and the mirrored. It should come as no surprise, then, that the concept has significantly contributed to the Platonic-Augustinian tradition, for which speculation functioned as the mediating faculty between nature and the supernatural, reality and the world of ideas, the down-here and the beyond, etc. On the other hand, the concept of speculation was also used as the Latin alternative for the Greek term theoria, and by consequence contrasted with praxis. This rather Aristo- telian background clearly yields another connotation to the term, but it steadily confirms the connection with ‘seeing’.7 Much of what has been said above about a method of concordance and about the suggestion that both the faculties of imagination and speculation can (and should) play a leading role in further developing the conceptual richness of this theological approach is influenced by Romanticism. In the general schemes of the history of thought, Romanticism is considered to be a restorative and emotional reaction against the exaggerations of the Enlightenment, which has been, correspondingly, reduced to a certain kind of rationalism.8 Furthermore, Romanticism is known as an influential

6. A. R. Manser, “Imagination,” The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: MacMillan, 1967) 136-139, p. 136. In this regard, it is relevant to point to Coleridge’s famous distinction between fancy and imagination, too (see Hedley, Living Forms of the Imagination, p. 49). 7. Necessary information and references are to be found in Sabrina Ebbersmeyer, “Spekulation,” Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 9, ed. J. Ritter & K. Gründer (Basel: Schwabe, 1995) 1355-1372, esp. 1356-1361. 8. One does not do justice to the entire Enlightenment (period) by identifying it with the promotion of scientific rationalism. This has been amply and convincingly demonstrated by Louis Dupré in his magnificent book The Enlightenment and the Intel- lectual Foundations of Modern Culture (New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, 2004).

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current in areas as diverse as politics, poetry, music, and painting, but in the minds of many it hardly plays a role in thinking. To the contrary, in the latter field the first half of the nineteenth century is occupied by (German) idealism and the nascent reactions to it (mainly materialism and existentialism). However, this view certainly needs revision since Romanti- cism as such is also genuinely philosophical9 and, as I would add, theological. Bernard Reardon has attempted to set forth “the essence of romanticism [sic],” by stating that “[it] lies in the inexpugnable feeling that the finite is not self-explanatory and self-justifying, but that behind it and within it – shining, as it were, through it – there is always an infinite ‘beyond’, and that he who has once glimpsed the infinity that permeates as well as transcends all finitude can never again rest content with the paltry this-and-that, the rationalized simplicities, of everyday life.”10 As to the relation between (German) idealism and Romanticism, Reardon further observes that “the name Romantic idealism is in common use, but were it taken to mean that the idealist systems were simply romanticist sentiment in its most philosophic mood it would certainly be misleading. Idealism does not stand to Romanticism as effect to cause.” However, “there can be no doubt that a genuine affinity existed between the Romantics and the great speculative systems of their time. […] To the idealist philosophers as to the Romantics all experience entered into their purview; nothing was irrelevant, and the life of thought and imagination was no less real than that of the body itself. Critical analysis was to be accepted, but in order to render synthesis possible. The difference between them […] lay in their respective views of the roles of speculative reason and of intuition.”11 In what follows, I aim to argue that theology nevertheless has an interest in both speculation, intuition and the imagination. Before I proceed, however, one important caveat must be levelled against an all too enthusiastic welcoming of the imagination for theological purposes. In post-Kantian philosophy, an emphasis was laid on productive imagination. By contrast, reproductive imagination was a

9. In his noteworthy introduction to a compilation on the philosophical relevance of romanticism, Nicolas Kompridis circumscribes romanticism as follows: “I want to think of contemporary romanticism as not simply continuing in various ways and with varying degrees of awareness the philosophical projects of German romanticism and German idealism, but as reaching back to them, reclaiming and renaming a living romanticism for our time, and for a time that will follow our own.” Nicolas Kompridis (ed.), Philosophical Romanticism (London/New York: Routledge, 2006) 2-3. 10. Bernard Reardon, Religion in the Age of Romanticism: Studies in Early Nine- teenth Century Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) 3. 11. Ibid., 19.

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rather technical concept, which explained how the mind works with complete images although the eye, strictly speaking, only sees aspects of it. While this kind of imagination may have been necessary in the framework of elaborate epistemologies, it did not fascinate the Romantics because it lacked an air of creativity. This is different, though, in the case of the productive imagination. This concept established the theoretical background upon which Romanticism could unfold its ideal of the art- ist. Many Romantics cherished artists as completely independent and simply brilliant creators, an attitude which gave rise to their well-known cult of geniuses. Theology, however, should, for reasons to be specified below, be cautious not to copy this idea(l) of the imagination. Essen- tially, theologians ought to always realise that the active and creative possibilities of the imagination should, if not be tempered, at least be complemented by more receptive faculties. In my view, speculation is a good candidate to keep a proper balance.

II. The Theological Interest in Speculative Imagining

According to the British philosopher Douglas Hedley, modern theology may indeed have “inherited a largely negative conception of the imagination,” which might be “linked to the critique of metaphysics as idolatrous.”12 Another way of formulating this idea is the following: there is an intimate, probably even a necessary, connection between Christian faith and metaphysics.13 However, the history of thought of the last two and a half centuries has shown that reason (alone) is incapable of explaining and justifying this connection. In the universal explo- ration of truth, beauty, and goodness, reason should be assisted by the imagination. Theology in particular should not withdraw its trust in both reason, the imagination, and speculation, at least not if it continues to see it as its task to interpret and articulate the Christian message of faith, hope, and love in all times and at all places. Furthermore, if theology does see this as its task, it should not exclude any aspect or dimen- sion of reality of which it surmises it can be helpful to understand and defend Christianity. Put somewhat differently, theology is about making connections and profound reality claims based on both reason and the imagination.

12. Hedley, Living Forms of the Imagination, 11. 13. Thomas G. Guarino, Foundations of Systematic Theology (London/New York: T & T Clark, 2005).

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This claim can best be illustrated with the aid of an example, for instance, the Biblical concept of creation. Creation is a theological concept that refers to the world in which we live and its order, of which it is believed that it has been created and willed by God. Few will maintain that the divine act of creation is to be understood in physical terms, yet the concept of creation is more than a simple metaphor or an arbitrary image. It is a genuine concept that expresses something about reality. And the approach to the created world, whether theoretical or practical, reveals something about the God Christians believe in. Theology’s task in this context is to elucidate the conceptual differences and tensions and to somehow connect God’s free creative will (the transcendent, as it were) with the observable result of it (the immanent, as its corollary). With an appeal to reason alone, theology would not get very far. A set of formal principles which guide the intellect in its attempt at making meaningful assertions is too weak and too narrow a basis for theology. Moreover, the imagination should come into play here, rather than just the senses giving input into this theological conception. If theology wants to understand comprehensively what creation really means, it should also rely on the offspring of the imagination, of what people for centuries have associated with it and felt about creatureliness. To get an idea of what all this contains, more must be done than collect as much as possible empirical data. It will require that the theologian involved uses her imagination and that she thinks through the meanings of all the pictures she gets. Hence, if we extrapolate this example, a kind of speculative imagining is indispensable for all theological endeavours. In addition, via a more existential theological concept like grace, a similar conclusion obtrudes itself. If one wants to pass beyond the level of mere theological theories and if one asks oneself what God’s grace really entails, the answers provided by reason alone appear to be limited. Speculation and imagination should complement its perspective and make connections with both real life experiences and the theological tradition. Concepts like a beneficial nearness, trust and accompaniment, presence as promise, mental welfare, etc., which can all be related to the content of grace as a theological concept, are nourished by and can benefit from the operations and results of speculative imagining. The same certainly holds true when referring to the liturgy as the “font” and the “summit” of the Church’s activity.14 Of course, this is imaginative language but its profoundest meaning surpasses the analyses

14. Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 10.

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that try to explicate this famous phrase as part of a particular language game accessible only to insiders. To understand what it really means that the liturgy (as a whole) is indeed the source of all ecclesial initiatives and undertakings, it does not suffice to present an adequate analysis of the concepts of “fons” and “culmen,” although this is, of course, a necessary preliminary step. Neither will a thorough mapping of different pastoral situations and an evaluation of them in light of Vatican II’s criteria turn out to be sufficient. It is much more preferable, and a much more encompassing approach, if imagination and speculation play an active role in this process. Both these capacities somehow make sure that the possible gap between theological theory and the life of faith is bridged. Finally, the liturgy itself also needs to be theologically approached by a refined combination of human faculties of understanding: intuition, reason, speculation, and imagination. Let me develop this idea by briefly elaborating upon two examples: the eschatological essence of the liturgy and Christ’s institution of the Eucharist. Admittedly, with regard to the first, it is unusual to ground the essence of the liturgy in eschatological terms but it does make sense to do so since the meaning of the liturgy pointedly appears when it is seen as the continuation of God’s salvific and revelatory activity in the time span between what happened with Jesus Christ and the second coming of the Lord.15 The liturgy prefigures the establishment of the perfected Reign of God; it offers us a glimpse of what the heavenly banquet will be like when all in all will be reconciled.16 Clearly, in the liturgy, the meaning of peace and reconciliation transcends the level of the ethical, the practical and the concrete, but its claims are no less real. It evidently requires that one uses one’s imagination not to fall into the trap of understanding and explaining these claims literally. However, in radical contrast to prevailing opinions, one should not identify the level of literal meanings with the totality of possible explanations and derive from it the impossibility of non-literal accounts. It is only when this is done first that one can grasp the idea that the essence of the liturgy is embedded in a dynamic framework that slowly but surely unfolds itself eschatologically.

15. For a provocative elaboration of the idea that the liturgy is in the strongest sense of the word revelatory, see Laurence Paul Hemming, Worship as a Revelation: The Past, Present and Future of Catholic Liturgy (London/New York: Continuum, 2008). 16. Geoffrey Wainwright, Eucharist and Eschatology (Akron: OSL Publications, 2002).

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The second example concerns the classical question of the institution of the Eucharist. The dogmatic tradition of Christianity maintains that Jesus Christ did this effectively at the occasion of the last supper he held with his confidants.17 Because of the lack of historical evidence both of the act itself and of the precise circumstances, several scholars have cast serious doubt on the historicity of this claim.18 In its turn, the undermining of the historicity of the claim has brought along theological consequences. Some theologians have tried to rescue the claim by declaring that Christ’s establishment of the Eucharist concerns a pure faith assertion, thereby actually excluding it from rational scrutiny and critique. Historical criticism such as this is unable to produce theological solutions alone; neither historical positivism nor theological fideism will show a way out of this deadlock. The use of imagination can help illuminate the connection between contemporary celebrations of the Eucha- rist and Jesus’ actions just before his death; not the study of (the history) of the liturgy, but the liturgy itself.

III. Kuhn’s and Baader’s Appeal to Speculation

In the context of this contribution, a short introductory note on the choice for Baader and Kuhn must be included. In a way they incor- porate everything we need in terms of understanding the role of speculation and imagination in theology. Baader and Kuhn, though belonging to different generations, lived during the heydays of (German) Roman- ticism.19 In particular, this meant a critical confrontation with the

17. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa. 73, 5: “This sacrament was wisely instituted at the Last Supper when Christ was spending his last hours with his disciples. […] Christ himself is sacramentally contained in the Eucharist. And so at the moment of his departure from his disciples in his natural presence, he left himself among them in a sacramental presence; as when the emperor is absent his image is set up for homage.” English text from St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Vol. 58: The Eucha- ristic Presence, ed. William Barden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 19. 18. Enrico Mazza, The Celebration of the Eucharist: The Origin of the Rite and the Development of Its Interpretation, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, MN: Litur- gical Press, 1999) 19-28. 19. Paul Kluckhohn divides the Romantic Movement into three phases, each time connecting them with central cities where its main representatives worked and lived. Baader is evidently subsumed under later romanticism in Bavaria, although he was already entangled in it long before. Cf. Paul Kluckhohn, Das Ideengut der deutschen Romantik (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 51966); id., “Voraussetzungen und Verlauf der romantischen Bewegung,” Romantik: Ein Zyklus Tübinger Vorlesungen, ed. Theodor Steinbüchel (Tübingen/Stuttgart: Rainer Wunderlich, 1948) 11-26.

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Enlightenment’s aftermath and, in the realm of thinking, primarily with Hegel’s legacy. Kuhn and Baader agreed with Hegel that speculation should be granted a more prominent role in acquiring knowledge, but, in the end, they fiercely rejected Hegel’s speculative system.20 They opined that it swallows up faith instead of giving a truthful account of it. The deepest reason why they judged it inescapable to go beyond Hegel was their deliberate choice to remain loyal to the Christian tradition. Besides, as seen in many of their texts and initiatives, it appears that Baader as well as Kuhn wanted to be seen as self-confident Catholic intellectuals; making them both representatives of the kind of Catholic revival that spanned the first half of the 19th century. Again, this “type of Catholic theological romanticism” is accurately characterised by Bernard Reardon: “[It] was at times mystical and even theosophist in sentiment and deeply imbued with the sense of tradition and of the continuity of past and present, while also seeing in change and development a sign of vitality.”21 Interestingly, irrespective of their ultimate rejection of Hegel’s system, both Baader and Kuhn advocated that a new understanding of speculation and a speculative method were necessary for theology. Baader elaborated this rather dogmatically and in a narrative fashion, whereas Kuhn was more strictly conceptual and philosophical. I decided to com- bine both perspectives, however, because I think they are complementary. In the years 1828-1838 Baader taught no less than five times on speculative dogmatics at the then newly established Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. The preparatory notes accompanying these series of lectures have been published in volumes eight and nine of the Collected Works (Sämtliche Werke) under the general title Lectures on Speculative Dogmatics (Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik).22 They are to be considered among the most important sources for the study of Baader’s later development. In that same period, Kuhn had become one of the editors of the famous Theologische Quartalschrift, in which he issued several extensive articles of his own on speculation and speculative theology. For

20. Among the representatives of the Tübingen School were many of the first critics of Hegel and Hegelianism. Apart from Kuhn and Baader themselves, it probably suffices to mention Franz Anton Staudenmaier. Much of the theological objections against Hegel which were formulated throughout the 20th century are in a way antici- pated by the Tübingen School. 21. Reardon, Religion in the Age of Romanticism, 130. 22. Franz Xaver von Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik, in Sämtliche Werke, Bd. VIII & IX, ed. Franz von Hoffmann, et al. (Aalen: Scientia, 1963). Below I will always indicate the number of the corresponding lecture series [Hefte] (I-V), followed by the respective pages in the corresponding volume.

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the purposes of this contribution, I will solely rely on his paper entitled Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,23 which was published in the year Baader died. To my knowledge, no direct influence of Baader on Kuhn or vice versa has been reported in the scholarly literature, neither do I want to suggest any in this article. Rather, I assume that both thinkers shared the same faith, culture, and intellectual convictions, and that they defended the same theological case, albeit with the aid of different literary means and with a strongly different personal style. Baader’s lecture notes and Kuhn’s article will, above all, serve as a starting point for a reflection on the constitutive role speculation (as imagination) can play in the articulation of truth. In order to specify the nature and aim of speculative theology, Baader and Kuhn contrasted their projects with several other approaches. On the one hand, Baader and Kuhn decisively took a distance from what they called speculative philosophy. They scarcely mention names but it is not difficult to imagine that they most often meant Schelling and Hegel and their attempts at an absolute identity of knowledge and being.24 Kuhn comments: “Speculative philosophy does not leave room for anything real as such which differs from thinking, but reduces the whole empirical reality to mere being, which is identical to pure thought.”25 Kuhn makes very clear that this is a method not to follow: “Everything particular and simple is sunk into the bottomless abyss of the Identitas; and without distinction everything is taken up into this ‘one’, like smoke.”26 This results in mere abstractions and cannot do justice anymore to simple perception of real things.

23. Johannes Evangelist von Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” Theologische Quartalschrift 23/1 (1841) 1-80. Unfortunately, no translation of this text was taken up in a compilation of Kuhn’s works, which for the first time makes a selection of his work available to an English-speaking readership: Faithfully Seeking Understanding: Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn, ed. & trans. Grant Kaplan (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009). 24. It is as if these authors spontaneously understood that Schelling’s intuitions which laid at the basis of his philosophy of identity (developed approximately from 1799 until 1806), were carried out more profoundly by Hegel’s mature system, although Schelling himself took a different philosophical path from about the moment he moved to Munich (and met there with… Baader). 25. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 8: “Die speculative Philosophie läßt überhaupt kein Wirkliches als solches und in der Verschiedenheit vom Denken für sich bestehen, sondern führt alles empirisch Wirkliche auf das reine Sein zurück, welches mit dem reinen Denken schlechthin identisch ist.” 26. Ibid., 10: “Alles Besondere und Einzelne wird versenkt in den bodenlosen Abgrund der Identitas; und unterschiedslos geht alles in diesem Einen, wie im Rauche auf.”

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On the other hand, Baader and Kuhn expressed a deep disagree- ment with different theological answers to the philosophical challenges. Firstly, they rejected the leap into the supernatural and the rupture of the connection with the cognitive capacities of human beings, which is the usual consequence of such a leap. This was unacceptable for them since their appeal to speculation was aimed precisely at a deeper understanding of the truth imprinted – and hence to be discovered – in Christian faith.27 Kuhn and Baader recognised this supernaturalist current in pietism and the attempts to ground faith in feelings. Baader indicates that he can understand the basic thrust of pietism but that this must not run counter to the use of the intellect and research: “If the pietist gives up the use of reason because he holds the truths of religion to be un-examinable, then he does not realize that the human being can become intimately aware of such an un-examinability only by way of an authentic examination and through the free use of reason.”28 Clearly, Baader’s outbursts against pietism by no means intend to be a sign of disrespect toward genuine piety.29 In this context, Kuhn pointed to the problems with Schleiermacher and his followers: since they contend that both the act of faith and its content are subjective, they risk undermining the apostolocity of the Christian faith, which requires a continuity and conformity of our faith with the apostles’. In addition, their subjectivism is unscientific because it excludes properties like unity, generality, and necessity, which are indispensable for any act of knowledge.30 Secondly, Baader and Kuhn reacted against the opposite theological current, which they labelled pejoratively as rationalism and sometimes as scholasticism. They argued that it was impossible to account for the Christian faith by relying only on scientific standards of knowledge acquisition. Kuhn concisely concludes: “If we oppose supernaturalism and rationalism, then it does not come to a real and full knowing in the

27. I discussed the idea that truth for Baader (and also for the later Schelling) was something to be discovered instead of invented or decided upon by the modern subject in “‘Truth’ According to the Later Schelling and Baader: An Attempt at Transcending Modernity,” Theology and the Quest for Truth, ed. Lieven Boeve, Mathijs Lamberigts, Terrence Merrigan, Dirk Claes, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovanien- sium, 202 (Leuven: Peeters, 2006) 107-118. 28. Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik 3, SW VIII, 309: “Wenn der Pietist seinen Vernunftgebrauch darum aufgibt, weil er die Religionswahrheiten für uner- forschlich hält, so bedenkt er nicht, dass der Mensch eine solche Unerforschlichkeit doch nur auf dem Wege des aufrichtigen Forschens und im freien Gebrauche der Vernunft inne werden könnte.” 29. Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik 1, SW VIII, 48. 30. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 58.

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former, and not to a real and true faith in the latter and, as a consequence, not to a genuine satisfaction in either.”31 Both Kuhn and Baader argued that this “genuine satisfaction” is only brought about by speculative theology. They realised that the pur- suit and development of this branch of theology – which, besides, for obvious reasons, they refused to see as one (theological) discipline amongst many (equal) others – was highly disputed, especially among academics.32 Making a case for it anyway might have been as challenging as it would be now. This being said, we need to define as precisely as possible what Baader and Kuhn meant with speculation and how speculative theology operates. In this regard, Baader reminded his audience of the etymology of the concept. Truly speculative knowledge penetrates the object and lets itself equally be penetrated by it – hence surpassing superficial and merely external processes of knowledge (of which Kant’s epistemology serves as the paradigm). The perfection of speculative knowledge enters only “when those who know each other serve (i.e., unite themselves mirror-wise) one and the same higher (inner) [instance] as a mirror, just like they find themselves again downwards (externally) in a common mirror.” Baader significantly adds: “This is the basis of the doctrine of the image of God, inasmuch as the human being was destined to be a lively bearer of this image by letting himself penetrate by it, and [insofar as] he gained the power to penetrate all the beings who are beneath him, and to speculate in them, i.e., to mirror himself in them.”33 The main precondition of this is that the speculating subject is willing to acknowledge that the acquisition of knowledge does not

31. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 50: “Stellen wir den Supernaturalismus und Rationalismus einander gegenüber, so kommt es bei jenem zu keinem wirklichen und vollen Wissen, bei diesem zu keinem wirklichen und wahren Glauben, folglich beiderseits zu keiner eigentlichen Befriedigung.” 32. In the first lecture of the fourth series, e.g., Baader defends the case of speculation in theology and speculative theology against the reproach that this can only end up in inconsistencies. Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik 4, SW IX, 9ff. 33. Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik 3, SW VIII, 352: “[…] wenn die sich wechselseitig Erkennenden einem und demselben Höheren (Inneren) als Spiegel dienen (zu einem solchen Spiegel zusammengehen), so wie sie abwärts (nach Aussen) sich in einem gemeinsamen Spiegel wieder finden. Hierauf beruht auch die Lehre vom Bilde Gottes, indem der Mensch bestimmt war, Gottes Bild in sich eingehen lassend ein leibhafter Träger desselben zu sein, so wie er hiermit die Macht gewann, in alle unter ihm stehenden Wesen einzugehen, und in sie zu speculiren, d. h. in ihnen sich zu spiegeln.”

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depend only from his own initiatives.34 Kuhn further elucidates this preliminary and necessary condition inasmuch as he emphasises the immanence of knowledge in faith, and speculation as the human capacity to lay bare, explain, and understand the truth hidden in this bond: “Without transcending faith and moving on to something else, we reach the knowledge and science of faith in a dialectic way, i.e., through the fact that the content of the faith is conducted through the stages of scientific knowledge and that it is destined to be understood.”35 The highest perfection of this understanding is a speculative insight, which, however, must not be confused with Hegel’s account of the ultimate self-realisation of the “Geist.” For according to Kuhn, “the human spirit is unable to know an absolute identity of the ideal and the real.”36 If this is applied to Christian faith, Kuhn continues, “then [faith] is neither as a subjective faith which every believer has, nor as an objec- tive faith which is the presupposition of science, a merely immediate truth, but it appears only together with reflexive determinations, i.e., in the form of a real consciousness.”37 It is up to speculation to interpret

34. Baader repeatedly argued that surrender is essential with a view to knowing and thinking: “No manifestation [i.e., appearance], hence no thinking is possible without subjection. Knowing goes beyond finitude. Real existence is only there for thought; there is nothing, which could exist as knowable only for itself; it must have a ground in the infinite” (Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik 1, SW VIII, 43: “Keine Manifestation, also kein Denken ist möglich ohne Subjection. Das Wissen und Erken- nen geht über die Endlichkeit hinaus. Das wahre Dasein ist nur für den Gedanken, es gibt kein Ding, das als erkennbar für sich bestehen könnte, es muss im Unendlichen seinen Grund haben”). Unfortunately there is no room here to discuss the implications of this stance and to evaluate their claims in comparison to modern epistemologies. 35. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 51: “Ohne über den Glauben hinaus- und zu einem anderen überzugehen, gelangen wir zum Wissen und zur Wissenschaft des Glaubens auf dialektische Weise, oder dadurch, daß der Glaube mit seinem eigenen Inhalt durch die Stufen der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntniß hin- durchgeführt und zum Begriff fortbestimmt sind.” One should not be surprised because of the use of the word “Wissenschaft” (science) in this context. In this period the “science of faith” was, unlike today, commonly and quite unproblematically identified with (dogmatic) theology. – Also the appearance of “Dialektik” should not come as a surprise; not only Hegel made use of it, and it could denote many more things than the motor of the negative in Hegel’s system. 36. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 6: “[…] kann der menschliche Geist keine absolute Identität des Idealen und Realen anerkennen.” And he further clarifies: “Hence, we have to suppose always a relative unity of thinking and reality, which includes difference” (“Wir haben also überall von einer relativen Einheit des Denkens und der Wirklichkeit, welche die Verschiedenheit einschließt, auszugehen” [my emphasis].) Cf. also ibid., 12. 37. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 6: “so ist derselbe [i.e., faith] weder als subjectiver Glaube, wie ihn jeder Gläubige hat, noch als objectiver Glaube, wie er die Vorausseßung der Wissenschaft ist, eine blos unmittelbare Wahrheit, sondern tritt immer zugleich mit Reflexionsbestimmungen, d. i. in der Form eines wirklichen Bewußtseyns auf.”

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the trajectory of this undeniably real faith, in line with an old and well-known Latin adage, namely fides quaerens intellectum. However, Kuhn only exceptionally refers to this adage; instead, he considers the more radical fides praecedit intellectum (faith precedes the intellect) to be the guiding principle of any theology worthy of this name.38 It is, in any case, the axiom of speculative theology. According to Kuhn, the history of theology has yielded many examples of speculative theologians, as well as of distortions in both style and content. It is only in the first case that the deviation from the speculative principle did not give rise to heresies. Clemens of Alexandria is the first representative of the speculative branch in theology which Kuhn dis- cusses. Tertullian and many others, mainly Western thinkers, did not follow Clemens’ example but they also were mindful not to substantially diverge from the principles of the priority of faith and the intrinsic rea- sonableness of it. In Augustine, for example, the tradition probably found the most profound instance of speculative theology.39 This type of theology, however, was not always truthfully continued in the course of history. Significantly, Kuhn evaluated scholastic theology in an ambiguous way. On the one hand, it was faithful to the basic principle of speculation, namely its solid rootedness in faith. On the other hand, even the top scholastic theologians often gave the wrong impression that they put philosophy and theology, reason and faith, on equal footing.40 Clearly, both Kuhn and Baader strongly held on to an intrinsic relation between faith and reason, but there is no doubt that they ought not to be blended and that faith stands on a higher level. Kuhn says: “Theological knowledge is the higher unity and the broader circle; in the narrower circle of philosophical knowledge, which is just as much an independent truth of reason, corresponding truths are in agreement with

38. Cf. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 2; 18; 25-26. Still another saying is used in this context. Both Baader and Kuhn refer to a (slightly adapted) Vulgate translation of Is 7:9b: “nisi credideritis, non intelligetis” (you will not understand unless you believe). 39. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 41-42: “Augustine wants […] a progress from faith to knowledge within the original, immediate truth and certainty of it, a knowing immanent in faith, and he rejects both the mixing of a (philosophical) content which exclusively belongs to knowing with a (theological) content of faith, of reason with revelation, and of every transgression of the principle of faith” (“Augustinus will […] einen Fortschritt des Glaubens zum Wissen innerhalb der ursprünglichen, unmittelbaren Wahrheit und Gewißheit desselben, ein dem Glauben immanentes Wissen, und verwirft sowohl die Vermischung des dem Wissen eigenthüm- lichen (philosophischen) Inhalts mit dem (theologischen) Inhalte des Glaubens, der Vernunft mit der Offenbarung, als auch jede Ueberschreitung des Glaubensprincips”). 40. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 44-45.

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it, whose synthetic enlargement is theological truth.”41 And Baader very much agrees: “To the one who says to me what he does not believe, I will say what he believes, and to the one who says to me what he knows and does not know, I will say what he believes and does not believe. There is no faith which does not side its unbelief, and no knowledge its ignorance. And the endeavor of the philosophical popes to dissolve all faith in knowledge is equally naïve as the one of the un-philosophical popes to lift all knowledge in faith.”42 Baader can only maintain this when he presupposes that faith has a broader scope than knowledge. According to Baader, one could say, there is a kind of ‘meta-narrative’ in Christianity to which every doctrine and every liturgical practice can (and should) be related. For him this meta-narrative is constituted by the basic scheme of Creation-Fall-Redemption. God created a good world, granted human beings an important place in it, but they were disloyal to their divine vocation. Nevertheless, God did not abandon humankind. To the contrary, he promised them reconciliation and even gave them the concrete means to achieve it. Speculation’s task is to connect beliefs and practices to this overarching narrative and, as such, also with one another. In this context, Baader relied on Marian Dobmayer’s extensive treatise on dogmatics (Systema theologiae catholicae, published posthumously in eight volumes 1807-1819), which structures the content of Christian faith in a fourfold way, circling around the gradual increase of the Reign of God.43 First, there is the primal establishment of this Reign through creation; then follows the disruption of it by sin and the restoration through the Redeemer; third is the guidance of this partly-restored Reign in present life; the end is the perfection of it in the future. Elsewhere Baader derived three of the most important doctrines of speculative dogmatics, the freedom of the human being, the essence of

41. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 52-53: “Das theologische Wissen ist die höhere Einheit und der weitere Kreis; ihm entsprechen in dem engern Kreise des philosophischen Wissens, das eine für sich bestehende Vernunftwah- rheit ist wie jenes, correlate Wahrheiten, deren synthetische Erweiterung die theologische Wahrheit ist.” 42. Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik 1, SW VIII, 110: “Wer mir sagt, was er nicht glaubt, dem will ich sagen, was er glaubt, und wer mir sagt, was er weiss und nicht weiss, dem will ich sagen woran er glaubt und nicht glaubt. Es gibt kein Glauben, dem nicht sein Unglauben, kein Wissen dem nicht sein Nichtwissen zur Seite steht. Und es ist ein eben so einfältiges Bestreben der philosophischen Pfaffen, alles Glauben im Wissen aufzulösen, als der nichtphilosophischen Pfaffen, alles Wissen in Glauben aufzuheben.” 43. Ibid., 55-56.

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the human being as God’s image, and God’s love to the human being.44 Again, speculative theology’s assignment consists in contemplating these central faith contents in such a way that their inner coherence and mutual dependence radiate ever more pointedly. Evidently, Baader’s account of Christianity’s ‘meta-narrative’ is soteriologically coloured. It is my presumption that the appeal to speculation, both in Baader and in Kuhn, must be understood against the background of a growing awareness among Catholic intellectuals that, in and through modernity, it had become increasingly difficult to defend and explain the meaning of the Christian religion for an audience which was less and less prepared to acknowledge a need for redemption. Kuhn and Baader, however, deeply understood the necessity of such an acknowledgment, even while admitting that stories and authority alone would not suffice to uphold the tradition of a living faith. Speculation was for Baader and Kuhn, as well as for like-minded contemporary thinkers, a safeguard against a leap into the irrational and at the same time a possibility to remain faithful to Revelation. Having said all this, the question arises what it is that speculative theology deals with. In this contribution, we have learned that speculation helps theology to develop the content of what is given in faith, and that it connects aspects and elements of faith with its core, thereby unfolding the richness, profundity, and truth embedded in the Christian revelation and tradition.

IV. Imagination ‘as’ Speculation and Truth

In the last part of this contribution, it is necessary to point out the precise relation between speculation and imagination and to address the question of how they are able to lay bare truth. Imagination and speculation are at the service of the same purpose, namely to persuade both believers and unbelievers of their need for sal- vation and to make them understand that it is through Christianity that they might meet God’s saving grace. Speculation looks for ways to render this conviction plausible and understandable, whereas the imagination uses and creates a great variety of images to sustain these claims – whereby this is probably not a secondary but a primary act. Speculation and imagination reciprocally presuppose one another: speculation can

44. Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik 1, SW VIII, 137.

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only reflect on the basis of real images, and images desire further explica- tion through reflection. Consequently, speculation and imagination may neither be blended, nor can they be separated or isolated from one another. Both being intrinsically human capacities, they play a constitutive role in giving an account of the fascinating interconnectedness of the many Christian faith contents, expressions, and practices with one another. At the same time speculation and imagination contribute to anchor (re)presentations of faith in reality – without, however, according to Kuhn’s warning, overlooking or neglecting the ultimately unbridge- able cleft between being and knowing. Both tributary to Romanticism, Kuhn and Baader realised that the capacities under consideration are a necessary complement to the connecting and synthesising work of reason. They help to ‘see’ the coherence of all aspects and dimensions of Christian faith. And yet, the imagination can be rightly interpreted ‘as’ speculation, and not vice versa, inasmuch as the intensity expressed in the act of ‘speculating’ (Schauen) is different from the production or reproduction of images yielded by the imagination. The subsumption of the imagination under the more general category of speculation is justified on the condition that the imagination and its products allow themselves to be speculated. The relation between speculation and imagination on the one hand, and truth on the other, is not an external but an intrinsic one. Specula- tion and imagination aid to understand that truth is not a strange coun- try to be conquered and colonised; as much of modern philosophy implicitly thought. To the contrary, truth is to be found in reality both within and outside the self. In this context, Kuhn asked the following rhetorical question: “Truth itself for the human spirit – what else is it but the wedding of the spirit with the real; the unity of the ideal and the real in the immediate observation, as this is the identity of both for the divine spirit?”45 The intuition of the dependence of the truth-bearing capacities of the human being is also something Baader continually dis- cusses in his speculative dogmatics. The “anthropological standpoint,”46 as he called it, is preliminary to any speculative-dogmatic conclusion. However, what he meant was by no means equal to modern subjectivism.

45. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 47: “Die Wahrheit selbst für den menschlichen Geist, was ist sie anders als die Vermählung desselben mit dem Wirklichen, die Einheit des Idealen and Realen in der unmittelbaren Wahrneh- mung, wie sie für den göttlichen Geist die Identität beider ist?” 46. Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik 2, SW VIII, 290; ibid. 3, SW VIII, 315.

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To the contrary, he wanted speculation and imagination to take as their starting point the mysterious though profound and real “Inwohnung” (dwelling, or living-in) of God in the human being, as expressed in the doctrine of imago Dei. “For it is only through the free surrender of one’s selfhood or through the free admission of the creative acting of the absolute selfhood, both in, through, and together with one, that the human being serves the self-subjection of God in his image, or the mirroring activity (cf. the concept of admiring), and it is only as the bearer of this image of God that he can participate in the absolute selfhood of the original image, and that he can become a word added to the self- speaker.”47 Or, put more concisely, as Kuhn quotes from Tertullian, “Dominum in simplicitate cordis esse quaerendum”48 (God is to be sought in the simplicity of the heart). To look for the Lord and to realise his will is indeed what human beings, as mirroring truth, are called to do.

Joris Geldhof is Associate Professor in the Department of Pastoral Theology and head of the Liturgical Institute of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of KU Leuven, Belgium. Address: Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Sint-Michielsstraat 4 – box 3101, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected].

47. Baader, Vorlesungen über speculative Dogmatik 2, SW VIII, 291: “Denn nur durch freie Aufgabe seiner Selbheit oder durch freies Gewährenlassen des schöpferischen Thuns der absoluten Selbheit, in und durch sich, wie mit sich, dient der Mensch der sich Subjectivirung Gottes im Abbild, oder dem darin sich Spiegeln (Admiriren und Miriren), und nur als Träger dieses Bildes Gottes wird er der absoluten Selbheit des Urbildes theilhaft, und wird Beiwort des Selbstlauters.” Besides, the use of auditive language in the magnificent image of the human being as Beiwort des Selbstlauters could be interpreted as an as nice as subtle correction to the visual metaphor prevailing in both speculation, the imagination and the tradition of Western thinking. 48. Kuhn, “Princip und Methode der speculativen Theologie,” 30.

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