Radical Revelation: A Philosophical Approach 9780567677785, 9780567677815, 9780567677792

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RADICAL REVELATION

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Illuminating Modernity Illuminating Modernity is dedicated to the renewal of faith in a world that is both Godless and idolatrous. This renewal takes the legacy of faith seriously and explores the tradition in the hope that the means of its contemporary development are to be found within it. This approach takes the historical crisis of faith seriously and makes sincere efforts to receive the strength necessary for a renewal. We call our way the Franciscan option. And yet, one of the greatest resources upon which we hope to build is Thomism, especially those hidden treasures of modern Thomistic thought to be found in Continental and phenomenological philosophy and theology. The Franciscan option takes the history of faith seriously both in its continuity and in its change. It takes seriously the tragic experiences of the history of faith since the Wars of Religion and especially in late modernity. But it also takes seriously the rich heritage of faith. As Michael Polanyi argued, faith has become the fundamental act of human persons. Faith involves the whole of the person in his or her absolute openness to the Absolute. As Hegel saw, the logic of history is prefigured in the story of the Gospels, and the great and transforming experience of humanity has remained the experience of resurrection in the aftermath of a dramatic death. The series editors are boundlessly grateful to Anna Turton, whose support for this series made a hope into a reality. We also owe a huge debt of gratitude to Notre Dame’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies for giving us financial and moral support at the outset of our project. Many thanks to Anthony Monta and James McAdams for caring about the ‘Hidden Treasures’.

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RADICAL REVELATION

A Philosophical Approach

Balázs M. Mezei

T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 Paperback edition first published in 2019 Copyright © Mezei, Balázs M., 2017 Balázs M. Mezei has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. x constitute an extension of this copyright page. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mezei, Balázs M., 1960– author. Title: Radical revelation: a philosophical approach / Balázs M. Mezei Description: 1 [edition]. | New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017. | Series: Illuminating modernity | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017036102 (print) | LCCN 2017039275 (ebook) | ISBN 9780567677808 (ePUB) | ISBN 9780567677792 (ePDF) | ISBN 9780567677785 (hardback: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Revelation–Christianity. | Revelation. Classification: LCC BT127.3 (ebook) | LCC BT127.3 .M49 2017 (print) | DDC 231.7/4–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017036102 ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-7778-5 PB: 978-0-5676-8878-1 ePDF: 978-0-5676-7779-2 ePub: 978-0-5676-7780-8 Typeset by Newgen Knowledge Works Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

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Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. —Lk. 12:2 When you think these things, it is the word of God in your heart. —Augustine

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C ONTENTS Acknowledgments Foreword 1. General Introduction 2. Structure and Content Chapter 1 WHAT IS REVELATION? 1. Preliminaries 2. The Presuppositions of Revelation 3. The Semantics of Revelation 4. The Historical Origins of Revelation 5. The Cognitive Origins of Revelation 6. The Fact of Revelation 7. Theories of Revelation 8. A Radical Philosophical Theology 9. Sources of Revelation

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1 1 4 11 17 29 35 42 51 58

Chapter 2 MODELS OF REVELATION 1. Preliminaries 2. Kinds, Types, and Models 3. Forms of Revelation 4. From Forms to Models 5. Systems of Models 6. An Example: The Liturgy 7. A Concluding Remark

67 67 70 74 83 97 102 106

Chapter 3 SELF-REVELATION 1. Preliminaries 2. The Grammar of Self-Revelation 3. The History of Self-Revelation 4. The Model of Self-Revelation 5. Self and Unity 6. Self and Persons 7. Radical Personhood

109 109 109 114 120 123 130 133

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Radical Personhood as kenosis Self-Revelation as Radical Personhood

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Chapter 4 RADICAL REVELATION 1. Preliminaries 2. Self-Revelation and Radical Revelation 3. Radical Revelation as the Fact of Freedom 4. The Eight Gestures of Freedom a. Birth b. Growth c. Entry d. Healing e. Radiance f. Transfiguration g. Kenosis h. Overcoming 5. Radical Re-velation 6. Radical Revelation as apokalypsis

151 151 152 154 156 158 161 164 166 168 170 172 174 177 181

Chapter 5 THE REVELATION OF APOCALYPTIC PERSONHOOD 1. Preliminaries 2. The Last Judgment of Michelangelo 3. Aspects of Apocalyptic Personhood a. The Kingdom of God b. The Son of Man c. Resurrection d. Pentecost e. Conversion f. Stoning g. The Lamb of God 4. Trinitarian Relations

189 189 190 194 195 197 200 203 209 216 220 224

Chapter 6 APOCALYPTIC PHENOMENOLOGY 1. Preliminaries 2. From Openness to Newness 3. Newness as Personhood 4. A Phenomenology of Disclosure 5. The Principle of Refusivum Sui 6. Models of Disclosure a. Augustine’s Confessional Apocalypse b. An Apocalypse of Contrasts

229 229 234 239 248 255 258 262 266

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c. A Faustian Apocalypse d. The Visage as Apocalypse The Musical Genius

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Chapter 7 THE CATHOLICITY OF REVELATION 1. On Overtures 2. Architectonics 3. Catholicity 4. Faith 5. Hope 6. Love 7. Prospects

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CONCLUSION

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Appendix I: The Concentric Model of Revelation Appendix II: The Ramifications of Revelation Appendix III: Aspects of Catholicity Appendix IV: An Outline of the Study of Apocalyptics Bibliography Index of Names Index of Biblical Passages Index of Art Works

341 342 343 344 345 355 359 361

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A CKNOWLEDGMENTS In Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, published in 2013, I defined one of the aims of that volume as “to analyze some of the problems I consider important in my work for a separate volume on the philosophical notion of what I term ‘radical revelation.’ ” This present volume under the title of Radical Revelation is the realization of that goal. My first task is to thank the Hungarian Fulbright Committee for the generous help that made possible my stay at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, in order to accomplish this work. Professor Francesca Murphy assisted my work in important and extensive ways, for which I can hardly express my gratitude. I express my thanks to the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, especially to its director Professor A. James McAdams, for his professional help and supportive friendship. I am grateful to Professor John O’Callaghan, director of the Maritain Center of the same university, for supporting my work with an intellectually and physically appropriate space in the Center. I thank Dr Kenneth Oakes, who has read the entire text, commented on the content and structure, and proposed a number of useful changes. Dr Aaron Riches spent valuable time verifying the biblical quotations, footnotes, and the bibliography in the text. Notre Dame, In.—Esztergom, Hungary Easter, 2016

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F OREWORD 1. General Introduction Revelation is one of our common words. Nevertheless, contemporary discussion reflects a general uncertainty about its meaning. In the present volume, I attempt to offer a comprehensive philosophical understanding of the notion of revelation. I suggest that this concept is an important tool for our intellectual expeditions. Whenever I  use the expression “revelation” I  refer to “divine revelation”—that is, revelation which comes forth from a divine source, whether divinity as such or a divine person within the divinity itself. However, it is not necessary to use the adjective “divine” at each occurrence of “revelation,” because “revelation,” as I show below, originates in the notion of divine disclosure. Only the proper understanding of this notion can help us grasp the most important developments of the legacy of philosophy and theology; and only on the basis of this legacy may we be able to understand the possibilities intrinsically present in the notion of revelation. In order to explain this exceptional significance, I  propose an historical and theoretical overview which defines what I call “radical revelation.” “Radical” refers to the core meaning of revelation, that is, its ultimate importance and underlying reality. It is about God’s self-disclosure which provides us with the ultimate sources of all related notions, including the notion of God. Radical revelation expresses divine self-disclosure in which God shows himself as absolute self-donation. This comes about in two fundamental ways. First, radical revelation, taken in itself, is the self-enrichment of the revealer (inasmuch as that is conceivable in God). Second and conversely, radical revelation is also about the persons and communities who receive the revelation. Revelation is simultaneously immanent and transcendent, ad intra and ad extra, theological and anthropological, or again, essential and economic. Radical revelation discloses these two dimensions not only in their distinction, but in their correlation as well. My use of the adjective “radical” is philosophical. In the philosophical sense, the term goes back to the early use of radicalis with the meaning of “original”; thus, Augustine used the term “radicalis Christiana societas” in the meaning of “the original Christian society.” Applied to human knowledge radicalis referred to the roots of thought reaching back to the origin, historical or transcendent, of mental reality. The modern philosophical use of the term was defined most importantly by Kant’s notion of “radical evil” (das radikal Böse) where “radical”— consistently with its earlier use—refers to the origin or “root” of evil. At the same time, the term expressed the full reality of evil, the inversion of the hierarchy of the universal and the particular. After Kant, philosophy and theology soon expanded

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and even “radicalized” the meaning of radical in a sense which is far from the philosophical understanding. Today, the term suggests something extreme or even outrageous. Many authors mistakenly attribute the later meaning of “radical” to Kant’s notion of evil, a shift of meaning which eludes the attention even of some experts. My understanding of “radical” applies the meaning offered by Kant and the philosophical tradition and refers to the original fullness, the radical reality of revelation. “Radical theology,” especially the important work of Thomas Altizer, proposed a comprehensive reinterpretation of Christian doctrines, a reinterpretation which has challenged contemporary philosophy and theology in fruitful ways. I describe this challenge as “fruitful” not because I agree with its conclusions; it is fruitful because it offered views which germinated important developments in contemporary thought and which made many of us aware of the value of the rethinking of our traditions. As to its conclusions, I believe that there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of reinterpretation in Altizer’s work. On the one hand, any reinterpretation, even if “radical,” is dependent on the subject matter it intends to reinterpret. Thus a “radically” new interpretation is just the expression of an original possibility. A “radical break” with the tradition remains part and parcel of that tradition. On the other hand, the basic principle of Altizer’s work, his notion of coincidentia oppositorum, seems to be a one-sided view of the original idea of Nicolas of Cusa. The coincidentia for Nicolas does not mean a simple sum of A and B, but a conjunction and thus a higher unity, C, of opposing poles. In this unity, the poles are synthesized into a higher whole which cannot be reduced to its simple constituents. The Radical Orthodoxy movement also offers an understanding of “radical” which stands close to what I propose in this volume. Radical Orthodoxy has criticized the seemingly radical character of secular theories of religion and theology and offered a reconsideration of older doctrines and even the acceptance of traditional theological paradigms, such as the analogy of being. Radical Orthodoxy refers to the Augustinian vision of all knowledge as divine illumination. However, in this movement the important developments of modernity are not sufficiently understood for a proper reconstruction of our history. There are consequences of this history which need to be taken into consideration, such as the development of the dignity of personhood. As I show below, the general notion of revelation is one of the important results of a similar development, and “radical revelation” is the discovery of this meaningful evolution. “Radical,” in the understanding I am proposing in this work, is not only about “divine illumination” but rather about the original fact of revelation ad intra as well as ad extra. The correlation between ad intra and ad extra revelation, a point I emphasize from time to time on the following pages, is such that we do not possess more than only a formal understanding of it. Our understanding is deeply non-proportional. Yet revelation is such that it is and will be what it has always been. This formula may be applicable in such a way that the ultimately mysterious character of revelation, including the integration of the ad intra and ad extra dimensions, is emphatically maintained. Whenever I talk about the correlation or even the integration of

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these dimensions, I refer to their unity in terms of the ultimate power of the divine, and not in terms of our fragmentary knowledge. In the present work, I  show not only the remarkable development of some important notions in our history, but also the homogeneous infrastructure of these notions in the very essence of Christianity. The doctrine of the Trinity is the heart of Christianity. The history of Christianity is the development of our understanding of this doctrine, an understanding which is necessarily incomplete and partial, and yet which shows a development throughout the various cultural, linguistic and philosophical contexts of our history. This history can be understood as a complex exploration of an original insight, an ever deeper understanding, which cannot be conceived as leading to a complete break with itself. It is not possible, in terms of serious scholarship, to offer a doctrine of the Trinity which is entirely different from the original doctrine, and if there is no such “radical” possibility, there is no need of a “radical” re-orthodoxizing either. What is needed, however, is a proper, balanced, complex, and accurate understanding of the historical development of the relevant notions, including the notion of revelation. Although the subject matter of the present work touches on the debates about “Gnosticism” in Western thought, a detailed reaction to related works must be provided in a different context. There are obvious reasons why a thoroughgoing criticism of the historical trajectory of “Gnosticim” has only a tangential relevance here. First, understanding history in terms of recurring forms of thought in accordance with a typology does not provide the tools for properly understanding some of the subtle developments which I analyze in the following pages. For example, the notion of divine self-revelation is one such development, perhaps the most momentous one, which has found its way into the documents of the Church and the works of theologians with different backgrounds and various objectives. If we accurately study the development of this notion, we come to see that a certain philosophical and theological understanding surfaces in it which articulates earlier thoughts in a new way and in a deeper sense. As Peter Koslowski pointed out, the developments which assisted the emergence of such new understandings led to positions which are difficult or even impossible to harmonize with the doctrines of the Church. Other understandings, nevertheless, have proved to be significant contributions to a better comprehension of the relevant traditions. With the words of Etienne Gilson: “We may wholly disagree with Hegel or with Comte, but nobody can read their encyclopedias without finding there an inexhaustible source of partial truths and of acute observations.”1 Second, the entire history of philosophy and theology shows that there are genuinely new developments which originate in traditional doctrines and open new understandings which cannot be called into question in a reasonable way; such is the emergence of the modern notion of a person as possessing “inner worth” or dignity. Third, the history of Christianity has demonstrated that the

1 Etienne Gilson, The Unity of Philosophical Experience (New York:  Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), p. 301.

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most fruitful intellectual developments have taken place in periods in which the critical component of reception was counterbalanced by the efforts to find the optimally positive interpretation of the works in question. It is sufficient simply to mention Augustine’s dealing with Platonism or Thomas Aquinas’s reception of the “Philosopher.” Augustine offered criticisms of the views of the “Platonists,” yet he was capable of acknowledging many of their valuable insights. Or again, Thomas Aquinas did not consider Aristotle an authority in theology, but in philosophy he recognized the unique importance of his thought. The bottom line of such examples is that philosophy’s questioning nature, as Joseph Ratzinger has called it, must be preserved and even respected so that philosophy can contribute to the proper understanding of faith. “Gnosis became the negation of philosophy, while faith defends both the greatness and the humility of philosophy.”2 In what follows it is the greatness and the humility of philosophy which I intend to defend in various ways. The notion of divine revelation, as we have inherited it from the history of Christianity, possesses a unique importance which is equally generative in philosophy and theology today. Moreover, the same notion, especially in its radical dimension, is relevant in a general theory of methodological research as well. In the arts, the notion of revelation is more at home today, because an idea of inspiration, that is, a sort of illumination coming from an ultimate source, has not entirely disappeared from our culture. In the present work, radical revelation is conceived as central to the understanding of our past and present; and I hold it significant for the possibility of an overall renewal of thinking as well. I offer a complex introduction to such a renewal based on the notion which serves as the title of this book. The distinctive significance of the notion of revelation becomes evident as soon as we reflect on the fact that theologians, philosophers, and even scientists have assumed the fact of divine revelation not only before the dawn of modernity, but for a long time during the most important modern and contemporary developments as well. However, the understanding of revelation has long lacked a unity and an appropriate clarification in theology and in philosophy. It remained in many ways one-sided and partial; no cohesive notion was present in the early stages of philosophical and theological inquiry. Whenever the notion of revelation came to the fore, authors typically meant either the “fonts” of our knowledge of revelation—such as the Bible—or the particular modes in which these sources were accessible, such as the ways in which God’s self-disclosure had been considered by earlier authors. Surprising as it is, the notion of revelation received a gradual clarification only during the second half of modernity, beginning especially in the eighteenth century. Indeed, one of the central concerns of modernity became the reassessment of the notion of revelation. The notion was rediscovered and reinterpreted during the Enlightenment period and influenced the reflections of the nineteenth and the twentieth century in fundamental ways.

2 Joseph Ratzinger, “Faith, Philosophy and Theology,” Communio:  International Catholic Review 11 (1984), 350–63 (362).

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Given the most widespread conceptions of modernity, this emphasis on the importance of the notion of revelation may seem curious. Indeed, the process of modernity represented a growing distance from earlier theological concepts and practices. In certain currents of modernity, notions related to religion have become strongly censured. But to see modernity merely in these terms is onesided. Modernity contained not only secular forms but also religious views seeking to answer the challenge of secularization. Such answers were part and parcel of the history of modernity, and secularization cannot be properly understood without taking into account its inner tensions. We often forget that modernity also included a process of redefinitions, reassessments and clarifications of traditional religious terms in new and often revolutionary ways. The notion of revelation serves as an appropriate example. Revelation, while used in various ways in earlier ages, was subject to a general reassessment and a unified understanding during the centuries of modernity, an understanding which still shapes our philosophical and theological discussions. In particular, the need for a unified understanding appeared as a response to philosophical and theological attempts to discard the notion of revelation. These attempts originated in an interpretation of nature as self-contained which became influential from the late Middle Ages onward and which received strong support from the scientific discoveries during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One of the consequences of this development was the emerging doubt about anything “supernatural,” as opposed to the idea of a self-sufficient nature, and thus about the possibility and necessity of a revelation rooted in a realm beyond nature. With the growing emphasis on natural rationality, the significance of the supernatural was weakened or wholly reduced to the mathematically conceived natural realm. Revelation became considered not only as consonant with natural reason understood more geometrico, but even as strictly identical with such reason. Once revelation was considered as the expression of natural rationality, the understanding of a supernatural revelation appeared tenuous and even superfluous. Ruling elites, who faced the problems of denominational differences in and among societies, tended to consider the reference to a supernatural and thus authoritative revelation politically hazardous. As a reaction, the philosophical and theological attempts to reformulate the notion of revelation led to clarifications, reassessments and redefinitions already in the Enlightenment period. Yet the most important contributions to this process did not appear before the nineteenth century, and it was only in the twentieth century that innovative interpretations of divine revelation became influential. The most significant result of this intense discussion, which lasted more than two centuries, has been the distinct awareness of a unified notion of revelation. The understanding of a purely natural revelation, a revelation given merely in the creation as espoused by the philosophers of deism, was a decisive step toward the recognition of the need for rethinking the notion of revelation in a systematic and unified fashion. As a reaction to deism, both Catholic and Protestant theologians sought to redefine and explain the fact of supernatural revelation. Yet the notion of the “supernatural” was determined by the notion of the “natural” in

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accordance with then current scientific views. Thus, an emphasis on the supernatural generated the additional problem of the relationship between the natural and the supernatural. The supernatural emerged in this context as a nature beyond nature, as a realm opposing the natural one and thus making the understanding of the complex unity of reality problematic. The sharp dichotomy between the natural and the supernatural had the positive effect of the understanding of divine revelation in a unified fashion. But it also had a negative outcome: the notion of the supernatural received the character of a second nature, a nature beyond nature, a thing beyond things, indeed an enormous enlargement of the finite labeled as “infinite.” It is in this context that philosophers and theologians attempted to find new ways of understanding revelation. The unified notion of revelation was already present in a natural form, yet its character needed to be better understood. A decisive reinterpretation was offered by thinkers who disregarded the extreme forms of the natural-supernatural dichotomy and considered revelation a fundamental fact—a fact of a universal significance and importance—and struggled to understand reality on that basis. The character of this fact, the unified notion of revelation, needed a stricter understanding; thus the very question as to what precisely revelation is appeared. The positive and well-formed answer to this question was developed by such thinkers as F.  W. J.  Schelling and G.  W. F.  Hegel. These philosophers, especially Schelling, were responsible for the rise of a new awareness of revelation. In their own ways they each argued for an encompassing notion of revelation. Most importantly, Schelling and Hegel—following in many ways the thought of Jakob Böhme—introduced a new and momentous understanding of revelation: the notion of God’s self-revelation. Divine revelation as the self-revelation of God is the crucial development in the modern philosophical and theological elaborations of this notion. Here we have to distinguish between the notion of God’s self-revelation as a more or less latent idea in earlier conceptions on the one hand, and the clear awareness and unified notion of divine self-revelation on the other. While the former was already present in a latent form in the earliest history of the notion, such as in the account of revelation given at Mount Sinai, there was for centuries no detectable theological effort to bring this notion to clear awareness. In point of fact, some important passages in the Bible identified revelation as the revelation of the Father given in the Son (Mt. 11:27; Lk. 10:22).3 However, during the early dogmatic debates the awareness of revelation became overshadowed not only by the problems of the canonical sources of revelation, but also by their relevance for fundamental Christological questions. Many related problems had to be clarified in order to maintain dogmatic orthodoxy, yet this effort diverted the attention of

3 All references to and quotations from the Bible use the Revised Standard Version: Second Catholic Edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006). However, in some cases the RSVCE does not fit the millennia-long Christian interpretations and terminology. I have noted when the text has been modified.

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theologians from the task of clarifying the unity and nature of revelation. It took almost eighteen hundred years to arrive at the clear recognition of the central problem of the notion of revelation and to recognize the importance of divine revelation as self-revelation. The basis of the present work is the recognition of divine revelation as selfrevelation. In the following pages, I seek to pay tribute to the history of revelation which contains, often implicitly, the notion of self-revelation. I also acknowledge the value of all the efforts of important ages of philosophical and theological scholarship. Still, the explicit notion of divine revelation was a relatively new recognition. Parallel to this recognition, the historical nature of self-revelation became emphasized as well. For as soon as the problem of self-revelation is recognized as a new development, the historical character of our understanding of revelation comes to the fore, an understanding which corresponds to the historical nature of God’s self-disclosure. Self-revelation, nevertheless, is not the only central theme of this work. There are a number of related questions, such as the meaning of “self ” in self-revelation. As I will show, the self of self-revelation concerns divine unity. This unity, nevertheless, is expressed in a plurality. By investigating the problem of the relationship between unity and plurality, we can recognize that divine unity is such that it is expressed in a complex plurality of persons. Radical revelation, then, is the revelation of God’s innermost selfhood in the forms of personhood. Radical personhood, as I call it in the text, is a crucial expression of the unity of God in the plurality of persons. In the expression of radical personhood, it is not only one person that is defined. While radical personhood is a fortiori embodied in Christ, this has an overall impact on the entire realm of self-revelation, because self-revelation entails embodiment in accordance with its absolute freedom. Radical personhood, however, is not yet the full realization of revelation as self-revelation. We arrive at radical personhood by following revelation as indirect self-revelation. There is, nevertheless, direct self-revelation as well, in which revelation as revelation is realized. In direct self-revelation we receive revelation as revelation in its immediacy; in indirect self-revelation, revelation as the revelation of the self is expressed. While indirect self-revelation leads to the realization of radical personhood, direct revelation opens up the perspective in which apocalyptic personhood is disclosed. These two dimensions of personhood, the radical and the apocalyptic, are two sides of the same coin, just as self-revelation is seen both in its direct and indirect forms. Inasmuch as the direct and indirect forms of revelation refer to one another, radical and apocalyptic personhood refer to one another as well. We cannot genuinely understand the one without the other and the one entails the other in an intrinsic way. However, radical revelation is ultimately realized in apocalyptic personhood in such a way that radical personhood is integrated into the overwhelming reality of apocalyptic personhood. As I  point out in one of the analyses of artworks below, Michelangelo’s Christ in the fresco The Last Judgment offers a higher expression of radical personhood in the very figure of the resurrected Christ realizing the work of a new creation. One sees the traces of suffering on his body, but the resurrected

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form of the Savior integrates these traces into the radiating unity of apocalyptic personhood.4 It is important to note that the present volume prepares the methodological, typological and thematic foundations of a global discussion of the significance of revelation in a number of study fields. As I explain in the last section of this work, I intend to continue the present work under the title of “apocalyptics.” This work is greatly enhanced (while independent in its scholarly character) by The Oxford Handbook of Divine Revelation, which is under preparation. Revelation is apokalypsis, and the study of revelation in its ramifications can be termed apocalyptics. I am aware of the fact that some contemporary authors, by realizing the importance of revelation in a general understanding of our traditions and their contemporary validity, already mentioned the need for a systematic study of apocalyptic contents and forms. However, just as the adjective “radical” is superficially applied in many works, “apocalypse” is often understood on a popular level. We often use “apocalypse” and “apocalyptic” in such ways that do not suit serious scholarship; for the real problem of any study of “apocalypse” is indeed the problem of revelation. In the present work, I focus on the problem of revelation, but I suggest, and even outline in Appendix IV, the systematic structure of an appropriate study of revelation under the title of “apocalyptics.” Here it is appropriate to discuss briefly the relationship between revelation and God. Revelation is an act of God, the fact of whom is taken for granted in revelation. However, depending on our understanding of revelation, our view of the existence of God varies. If revelation is understood as a noncentral act of God, then God may seem to be a being isolated from, or foreign to, non-divine beings. The more we understand revelation as God’s self-revelation, the more we conceive God as an infinite act of self-giving. Immanent or ad intra self-revelation does not exclude, but rather includes, revelation as historically realized revelation, that is, as revelation ad extra. The two aspects of revelation belong together: the ad intra dimension shapes the ad extra dimension and ad extra revelation has a corresponding (though nonproportional) influence on ad intra revelation. God’s full “self-knowledge” is a limited way to express his absolute selfpossession. However, divine self-possession and self-knowledge are mistakenly conceived if considered to be thing-like wholes. We need to be aware of the difference between wholes in our everyday sensory experience and the whole divine absoluteness is. While the wholes given in our experience are limited, divine absoluteness is not; the divine is actually infinite. God as “pure act” or pure energy is the infinitely real and incessant fulfillment of himself. Recall the Aristotelian meaning of mere actuality as opposed to the factuality of an external movement. An external movement, such as building a house, can reach its goal at a certain point of time, while at earlier times it is not yet accomplished. However, actuality

4 Appendix II, “The Ramifications of Revelation,” helps the reader see the structure of self-revelation as realized in direct and indirect forms and also in radical and apocalyptic personhood.

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is such that it is not only what it is in the full sense at a certain point of time, but it has always been fully what it is at the same time (such as thinking something and having simultaneously and always thought something in the same sense).5 Divine actuality is fully actual and having been actual in an absolute simultaneity in which fact and process fully coincide. Similarly, divine actuality simultaneously and fully entails revelation as a fact and a process, as being revealed and having been revealed at the same time and in the full sense. In this way, revelation ad intra can be conceived as a fundamental dimension of divine self-fulfillment, that is, his fully actual and fully actualizing self-realization. This self-realization is what can be described as revelation ad intra; and revelation ad extra is a dimension which is nonproportionally integrated into the infinite reality of divine self-realization. On the basis of a general notion of revelation we can develop the relevant notion of the godhead, a notion which transcends naïve conceptions of God and points to an understanding of God’s infinite self-giving. God’s “absolute distance” from its creation is above all absolute, that is to say, it stands above any kind of a onesided isolation. As the medieval dictum says, infiniti ad finitum nulla proportio (or again:  finiti ad infinitum nulla proportio), that is, there is no proportion between the divine and the non-divine. But the meaning of nulla proportio is not that the divine is isolated from the non-divine, but rather that they are related in such a way that the thesis of nulla proportio is preserved in the framework of an overall relationship. On this basis, the divine is such that it is already given; and it is given as the fact of self-revelation. In the notion of revelation we possess the notion of the “existence” of God, but this existence should not be interpreted in line with traditional notions of being. God is revealed, given, self-revealed, and self-given. He is given to himself and he is given to the non-divine. In this full givenness we may determine a certain aspect as “being,” but beyond being God is given in his self-revelation as an absolute fact. The periodical reemergence of various interpretations of the notion of revelation in philosophical and theological literature shows the unique importance of this notion. A well-defined notion of revelation, nevertheless, is not in the position of describing the entire content of revelation. The full meaning of revelation cannot be bound to a certain approach, language, or view which underlies theoretical considerations. Some developments in twentieth-century theology and philosophy demonstrate that the notion is able to survive severe crises and reappear in a new form and generate significant theoretical reflections. These reflections do not only discover new contents of the term but prepare further semantic developments which contribute to a deepened understanding. The notion of revelation as historical revelation, aesthetic revelation, or revelation of the wholly other has to be seen as aspects of selfrevelation. Thus considered, they help us reach a deeper understanding of revelation, an understanding which can never be exhaustive, not only because infiniti ad finitum nulla proportio, but also because revelation is an absolute fact.

5 Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1048b 20–25, in:  Basic Works, edited by Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), p. 826.

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One may wonder about the reasons why philosophers of religion have not indicated the unique importance of the notion of revelation in contemporary discussions more emphatically. While there has been a surge of various problems in philosophy of religion from the second half of the twentieth century, the problem of revelation has only rarely been addressed. The most probable answer to this question may be the immense difficulty of the notion of revelation. It seems that the notion is of a purely theological nature. We indeed read in various works on divine revelation that revelation belongs to the foundation of faith and it is the task of theology to recognize, define, and explain the notion of revelation. However, in any scientific procedure, the recognition, definition, and explanation of its first category or axiom is unavoidably one-sided. Physics presupposes the notion of physical reality and while the exact nature of this reality may be very different in accordance with the physical theory we apply—just compare the notions of physical reality in pre-Copernican, Newtonian, and Einsteinian theories—we still maintain a certain category of “physical reality” which is the object of our investigation. In an investigation on behalf of the physical sciences we cannot dispense with the notion of physical reality and cannot consider the wider context in which physical reality may be situated. We need a more comprehensive science, traditionally called “metaphysics,” in which various notions of physical reality can be investigated in a complex way. Physical science is able to reflect on various interpretations of physical reality in the works of Newton, Einstein, or Heisenberg. Nevertheless, the fundamental question concerning the fact of the historical change of our notions of physical reality cannot be properly raised in the framework of a concrete pattern of physical science. In a similar way, theology properly speaking presupposes divine revelation and recognizes, defines, and explains it on the basis of this presupposition. Since, however, theology needs to introduce the notion of revelation and discuss its possibility and credibility in ways that are already closed in a properly theological discussion, theology considers such general questions in an introductory science often called fundamental theology, theological introduction, or simply philosophy. In the framework of fundamental theology, the axiom of revelation is not yet presupposed as an axiom, rather, it is merely sought after as a possible occurrence. Theology in the strict sense cannot raise the general questions concerning its own axiom, or if it does it necessarily leaves the field of theology proper. Moreover, it is not only the possibility which cannot be appropriately raised in a theological investigation. Revelation in nature and history, revelation in thinking and action, the phenomenological variety of the notion of revelation, and the historical changes we recognize in various theological approaches to revelation are all aspects of the problem that call for a broader and, at the same time, more specific discipline, which is able to investigate the fact and notion of revelation. In the present work, I term this specific discipline non-standard radical philosophical theology and offer its description in the subsequent pages.

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It is essential to point out that theology as a science is not based directly on the fact of revelation but rather on the authority of the witnesses of revelation. It is due to the authority of the witnesses, such as the Bible and the Church tradition, that theology refers to the fact of revelation. Yet the fact of revelation figures only and exclusively as a formal axiom in theology. Beginning with this axiom, theology proceeds deductively in its most important steps to form the structures and contents of theology. For instance, it is the axiom of theology that God is Trinity and theology deductively arrives at various Trinitarian doctrines based on this axiom. At the same time, theology applies an inductive procedure as well with respect to the natural expressions of the doctrine of the Trinity, yet this inductive procedure is secondary in the framework of the deductive system. The axiomatic nature of theology is very different from the axiomatic nature of the natural sciences. While the natural sciences apply various axioms concerning the procedure of experiments and the possibilities to draw conclusions from experiments, they are open to the modification of their original axiomatic structure, such as it happens in the case of a paradigm change. In contradistinction to such paradigm changes, theology cannot substantially modify its original axiom on the basis of experimentation. Theology may apply different approaches in the framework of its original axiom, yet these approaches cannot lead to the disposal of the original “paradigm.” This “paradigm,” let me emphasize again, is based on the authority of witnesses and not directly on the facts themselves. That is to say, theology is based on the authority of its founding stories and not directly on the fact of revelation. It is in this way that the importance of a nonstandard radical philosophical theology, based on the fact of revelation, can be understood. Such a theology is nonstandard because it is philosophical; and it is radical, because it explores the original and comprehensive fact of revelation. It is true that inasmuch as a radical philosophical theology refers to the original and comprehensive fact of revelation, it is also able to recognize and analyze particular facts of revelation on the basis of other sources, such as the Bible. In the stories of the Bible, however, a radical philosophical theology does not refer to the witnesses on the basis of authority, but rather to the fact character of the events described in the text in terms of events belonging to, and instantiating, the original and comprehensive fact of revelation. A radical philosophical theology recognizes the rich fact in the descriptions of the Bible, as I will show below. And it realizes the structure of the rich facts as embedded in the original and comprehensive fact of revelation. If one reflects on the role revelation plays in the systematic building of theology, one immediately sees that the discipline of theology loses its raison d’être without the notion of revelation. On an historical level, philosophy is dependent on the axiom of natural reason defined in view of its axiomatic and structural difference from revelation. Philosophy in its historical sense may also lose its raison d’être without the notion of revelation. On the same historical level, the development of the sciences is dependent on the notion of revelation as well, because in their early evolution they adopted or assumed an understanding of self-contained nature

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in contradistinction to the supernatural and revelation as the expression of the supernatural. Thus, for a proper understanding of this development we again need to consider the notion of revelation. Moreover, our contemporary cultural world can be seen as a structure built on presuppositions borrowed from, and developed with reference to, the Christian conception of revelation. This connection has been weakened during the past centuries and our awareness of an historical dependence may remain obscure. Still, there is an historical connection between revelation and culture, because it has been the notion of revelation that activated an ever deeper understanding of its contents in the arts and the sciences, and it was the same notion that emphasized the importance of created freedom which is indispensable for the flourishing of a culture. In what follows, I often return to the crucial role works of art play in a deeper understanding of revelation. I emphasize again that such investigations are carried out in the framework of a nonstandard radical philosophical theology. There are several reasons why the rethinking of divine revelation is an intellectual imperative of our time. First, the philosophy of religion, which has become prevalent in academia in recent decades, still considers the problem of revelation as pertaining to theology. The problem of revelation is situated among the problems of religion; a theory dealing with this problematic, therefore, should have its important place in the philosophy of religion. Due to its theoretical significance, revelation ought to be the subject matter central to philosophy of religion. Second, inasmuch as philosophy of religion has come to occupy the place of special metaphysics of earlier times (i.e., the part of philosophy dealing with the problem of the existence and the attributes of God), a radical theory of revelation possesses an importance for metaphysics, that is, for philosophy more generally. Accordingly, it may not be an overstatement to say that the renewal of contemporary philosophy, just as that of theology, is dependent on the successful development of a radical philosophical theology of revelation. Third, the notion of a radical philosophical theology of revelation has its own historical forerunners; in such a history, however, the central importance of the notion of revelation, in its various forms, can be demonstrated. We can see that the notion of revelation has indeed been at the center of philosophical developments, even when the term “revelation” was not used or was used only in a limited sense. Fourth, a radical philosophical theology of divine revelation is able to show that a rethinking of our heritage is crucially important for the survival of our culture. Even though it may seem today that traditions, which we usually but imprecisely call “world-religions,” are acquiring a growing relevance which overshadows our heritage, I still think that this impression is based on false presuppositions, and, especially, on the forgetfulness of the significance of divine revelation in our history. It is, then, necessary to see the lasting significance of the Christian notion of divine revelation. Not only should our age and culture be seen against this background, but revelation should again become the central engagement of philosophical theologians. The task is not merely to understand what has happened so far in the history of reflections on revelation in philosophy and theology, nor merely to offer an interpretation of this notion, theological, philosophical, or otherwise. The task is rather to rethink

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revelation itself in a fundamental way in the framework of a radical theory of revelation which makes the fact of revelation visible.6

2. Structure and Content The length and intricate structure of the present work make it necessary to offer a brief overview of the chapters and their contents in themselves and in their relationship to one another. After this Foreword, which gives the general outlines of the main problem of the present work, Chapter 1 endeavors to outline the most important presuppositions of our notion of divine revelation in an historical and semantic setting. There is an historical development of the notion which needs to be displayed, and there is a cognitive realm in which the notion of revelation is rooted. These investigations point out the importance of the understanding of revelation as a fact. This fact is to be interpreted by a special kind of philosophy which is called “a non-standard radical philosophical theology” of revelation, an expression which receives a thoroughgoing treatment in the chapter. At the end of the chapter, the problem of the sources of revelation is raised in order to determine the material with which a radical philosophical theory works. Chapter  2 elaborates the methodology of model analysis. After distinguishing kinds, types, and models, the theoretical usefulness of models is emphasized, because of their flexibility as a methodological tool. I also analyze various approaches to the notion of revelation which already applied a model-centered methodology. A thoroughgoing criticism of various models makes it possible to develop further the essential insights embodied in them. There are several models of the notion of revelation which need to be considered as a unity. Thus, it becomes possible to outline a unified system of various models of divine revelation and to show in an example how these models constitute a whole. It is the Christian liturgy which proves to be a synthetic model of revelation, because it expresses and unifies various understandings in a comprehensive whole. Chapter  3 introduces and analyzes the notion of self-revelation as the most important modern understanding of divine revelation. After an historical and semantic overview of the notion of self-revelation, its theoretical importance comes to the fore. Next, the question concerning the meaning of the “self ” in selfrevelation can be raised. I propose the notion of self as the notion of ultimate unity in the concrete sense; and I point out the necessary relationship between selfhood and personhood. The notion of radical personhood is considered as the realization of selfhood. I use multiple examples of art history to show the unique role radical personhood has played in our history of ideas. Further, I define radical personhood on the basis of the biblical and theological notion of kenosis. Self-revelation

6 See Balázs M. Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013). A  further source of the present work is my two-volume philosophy of religion, Vallásbölcselet (Gödöllő: Attraktor, 2004), written in Hungarian.

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is essentially the revelation of radical personhood, that is, personhood in its ultimate concreteness. The central subject matter of Chapter  4 is the notion of radical revelation. I distinguish between self-revelation and radical revelation and argue that the latter is the special embodiment of the fact of freedom. Freedom is essential in revelation and radical revelation is based on radical freedom. I interpret the notion of radical revelation in eight different ways which I call “the gestures of freedom.” These gestures are model-like forms in which the fact of freedom is traditionally conceived. At the end of the chapter, I offer an analysis of the conflicting notions of revelation as disclosure and revelation as hiding. Revelation as apocalypsis is the classical form in which revelation as disclosure and revelation as hiding are unified. Chapter  5 introduces the notion of “apocalyptic personhood” as a corollary of radical personhood. Apocalyptic personhood is the fulfillment of radical personhood. Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgment serves as an example here, in which the features of apocalyptic personhood can be considered. Similarly to the eight gestures of freedom, the various aspects of apocalyptic personhood are highlighted. At the end of the chapter, I  outline a brief reflection on the Trinitarian implications of the notion of apocalyptic personhood. In Chapter 6, the description of apocalyptic personhood is further developed into apocalyptic phenomenology. The most important content of such a phenomenology is the fact of newness and its significance in a philosophical theology of divine revelation. The notion of “refusivum sui” is central to this part, because it explains the possibility and the fact of negativity or evil in our experience. I also introduce a description of various models of apocalyptic personhood which I call “models of disclosure.” While it is possible to offer a long list of such models, I confine my consideration only to four models in order to make the notion of apocalyptic personhood plausible. The musical genius at the end of the chapter serves as the paramount example of apocalyptic personhood which realizes newness both ad intra and ad extra. Chapter 7 is about the general conclusions of the preceding chapters. The “catholicity” of revelation is emphasized here in order to point out the significance of divine revelation in philosophy as well as theology, and the overall significance of an appropriate theory of revelation for the reality of revelation itself. Overtures are introductory pieces in philosophy, music, or theater, but even in a theory of revelation we need overtures which open up the way to the fulfillment of revelation. This fulfillment is realized through the classical triangle of faith, hope, and love, which are synthesized in genuine catholicity, that is, in the overall importance of the reality of revelation. This importance is at the same time ad extra as well as ad intra, because divine self-enrichment is intimately connected to the historical development of revelation. However, this does not affect the absoluteness of God, who is always and totally perfect. This perfection is in a perpetual actuality, which is evolved and displayed in the Trinitarian relations as well as in the economy of salvation.

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In the four Appendices, I  attach charts which help the understanding of the development and the models of divine revelation. I also offer an overview of the theoretical discipline “apocalyptics” which is a higher-level realization of the nonstandard radical philosophical theology, introduced in Chapter 1 of the present work. Apocalyptics is a discipline, which considers divine revelation in most of its important dimensions in the realm of human knowledge and action in the perspective of the historical development and realization of various facets of apocalyptic personhood. Finally, it may be useful to call the attention of my readers to the philosophical and theological background of the present work. On the one hand, I appreciate the so-called analytical tradition in philosophy as well as in theology, a tradition which has contributed to the clarity of argumentation and the accuracy of individual propositions in a way hardly ever seen in the history of human thought before the twentieth century. On the other hand, the richness and depth of the so-called Continental traditions in philosophy and theology have displayed an originality and creativeness which cannot be neglected or played out against a more scientific methodology, because this latter is often just about the way, and not about the content, of thinking. What we need is a certain combination of these traditions, or even a synthesis, which is able to identify the context in which analytical accuracy is needed and also the contexts where insight-oriented, and analogical kinds of thinking are in place. This need for a synthesis has been essential in the realization of the goals of the present work This work, nevertheless, has been prepared and developed in a context which has not been directly connected to the efforts of one of our significant contemporary philosophers, Jean-Luc Marion. His book Givenness and Revelation was published when I had already accomplished the text of the present work on the basis of the introductory volume of 2013. Marion engages a number of questions partly similar to the ones I raise in my work. Thus, he belongs to the few authors today who have realized the paramount importance of the notion of revelation. In his volume, just as in many other works he has published during his influential curriculum as a philosopher, Marion displays an exceptional accuracy and richness of historical and theoretical analysis. For instance, his investigations concerning the notion of revelation in late Scholasticism are indeed remarkable and fit in with his general criticism of modern philosophy before and after the rise of contemporary phenomenology. Moreover, his analysis of the Trinitarian dimension of revelation will make it necessary to continue the work of a philosophical trinitology. Moreover, Marion considers the notion of revelation in the context of his well-formed idea of a saturated phenomenon, an idea developed in the context of appraisal and criticism of the results of Classical Phenomenology. Inasmuch as Marion’s emphasis is put on the notion of a saturated phenomenon, his work significantly differs from the perspective I outline in the following pages. In spite of some thematic similarities, my approach emphasizes the ultimate fact of revelation. However, the conceptual deduction of revelation from phenomena in general

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and saturated phenomena in particular raises the difficult question of the ultimate reality of revelation. The reality of revelation is challenged even stronger if saturated phenomena are considered in a number of various forms, while the unity of these forms seems to be more or less neglected. The present work, however, understands the phenomenological tradition not in terms of particular phenomena but rather in terms of an original openness in accordance with the principle of the a priori of universal correlation. Thus this work takes the fact of revelation as the very source and, at the same time, the reality of openness both in the ad intra and the ad extra dimensions. ☼ A note on the optimal method of reading the present work is in place here. Given the subject matter of this book, the text is rather complex. There are logically oriented sections as well as thorough-going historical and linguistic analyses; there are phenomenological descriptions as well as examinations of the aesthetic kind; and there are sometimes paragraphs with a style more or less difficult to follow. The elliptic character becomes stronger whenever the subject matter borders on the mysterious. Therefore, it is important that the readers carefully reflect on the problems during the reading sessions. To read the entire book may take several days, so it is advisable to divide the reading into a series of sessions. To read one chapter in one session (3–4 hours) may be exhausting, but still looks to be the best path to follow. In line with logistic possibilities, one session may be split into two or three shorter sessions. If the readers feel they do not understand something sufficiently, I suggest to read on the text; a number of problems may become clarified by carrying on with the reading. As a help to get the point in a number of passages, the reader may look up on the internet the art works analyzed, such as paintings, buildings, or sculptures. For the same reason, I suggest to listen to some pieces of music I explore in the text. However, I do not find it helpful to add supplementary readings while studying the present work, because the terminologies and structures may strongly differ. It is more important to understand the present book as a whole and compare it to other, partly similar works, subsequently. Since the present volume is composed as one integral train of thoughts, it is worthwhile to read the volume from the beginning to the end. The sections and subsections of each chapter help the reader structure the problems, but they cannot be taken out of their contexts and properly understood in themselves. After reading the Foreword, it may be useful to study the Conclusion before the reading of the entire work, because the Conclusion gives a summary of the main results of the book. It is also useful to familiarize with the Appendices before reading the entire text, because they also help the reader understand the overarching nature of the problems. The Foreword and the Conclusion supply the reader with the two arms of the pliers to handle the problematic of this work. The main rule is that only a reflective and even contemplative reading may help grasp the questions and answers raised in this volume.

1

Chapter 1 W HAT I S R EVE L AT ION ?

1. Preliminaries We tend to believe that it belongs to the immutable facts of our cultural world that there are formations which we are justified in calling “religions.” Among others we label Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Christianity a “religion.” Nevertheless, the expression “religion” is the result of a complicated development of Western history. In its most important, premodern meaning, religion had only one apparently justified referent: Christianity. Judaism was conceived as a “faith,” Islam was for a long time a “sect” (i.e., a school of disciples) and primitive religions, inasmuch as they were known, were considered superstitions, that is, worships of nonexistent deities. The broad meaning of “religion,” referring to a family resemblance concept as we use it today, has been formed in the matrix of Christianity. In the ancient non-Western languages there is not even an approximately precise expression for the word “religion” in the sense of the Latin religio. Still less do we possess a suitable expression in non-Western languages for the complex meaning of religion as it emerged with the advent of global culture during modernity. “Religion” in its overall yet specific meaning has become defined only in the context of a globalized Christianity. Religio, the ancient Latin word for objective and subjective sacral obligation in early Roman cultic life, gained a wider though still limited meaning under the influence of Hellenism. Before the official acknowledgment of Christianity as the political cult of the Roman Empire, no ecumenical cult had the label of religio. Mystery religions were called “cults” or “mysteries,” and theological schools were “philosophies.”1 The wider meaning of the ancient Latin word took shape after the official introduction of Christianity as a state religion. This meaning has undergone considerable changes in the history of the Germanic nations in Western Europe. From the complex and politically featured meaning of religio there emerged first the emphatically subjective sense in the works of theologians and spiritual authors of the early Middle Ages. Reformation and Pietist spirituality reinforced this 1 Particular forms were certainly called religiones, but none were considered to be an encompassing form for the whole mankind. Cf. C. T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 2002), p. 1556.

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Radical Revelation

side of the meaning, while the objective sense—religion as a social and historical structure—remained prevalent especially in the Catholic vocabulary. The most significant changes occurred with the identification of non-Christian traditions with “religions.” While it was a novelty to call Islam a “religion” in the fifteenth century,2 it was again a further step to identify Hinduism or Buddhism as “world religions” at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In our day, “religion” rarely refers to the history of the term; it naturally signifies a category which goes beyond Christianity’s original register of meaning. “Christianity” is often understood today as merely a species of the genus “religion,” as only one among other “religions.” In this development the significance of the historical evolution of the term becomes invisible. Thus the theoretical problem this historical process poses disappears as well: the problem of the historical development in the formation of the unified meaning of the term. “Revelation” as an expression shares a number of characteristics with “religion.” It has reached a complexity and, simultaneously, a tentative unity of meaning unknown in earlier times. Just like the meaning of “religion,” the meaning of “revelation” went through changes during the centuries, and these changes have proved to be decisive for the word’s current meaning. In both cases, the course of development is from the partial and limited to the universal and overarching. The meaning of “religion” developed from a narrow sense to a broad one; and “revelation” emerged from specific sources, such as the prophetic experience of the early history of Judaism, and reached a general significance by the time of the ecumenical culture of Hellenism. It was nevertheless Christianity, represented especially by its most influential authors, that defined the characteristic meaning of revelation when it determined and explained its forms and contents. We shall see a more detailed description of the historical emergence of the notion of revelation below. However, in order to outline the framework in which such historical changes are situated, it seems to be unavoidable to offer here a short list of the most important claims about revelation in this work. These are the following: a) b) c) d)

Revelation is a fact. Revelation is an original and ultimate fact. Revelation is genuine. Revelation is above all a revelation of itself involving its own absolute self-identity in such a way that whatever is external to this self-identity contributes to the reality of revelation in a nonproportional way.

In this section I comment briefly on these claims; further details are offered in the following pages in this volume.

2 The first author who proposed the consistent use of “religio” for Islam was Nicolas of Cusa in De pace fidei: Vom Frieden zwischen den Religionen (Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 2002).

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1. What Is Revelation?

3

Ad (a): I consider revelation a fact in the fullest sense possible here. Revelation is an absolute fact, which entails that it is simultaneously a particular fact, because every absolute is such that it entails its particulars. That is, revelation is an historical fact yet it is a fact that opens up the absolute realm. Or more precisely, it is the absolute realm that opens up itself to, or makes possible, the realization of the historical fact. Ad (b): On the historical trajectory, revelation is not only a fact of history, but the original fact of history as well. Revelation is original, that is to say it has a specifically absolute status which makes the historical trajectory possible. It activates history and thus, in an original sense, belongs to history; yet as its source it is beyond history. This position of revelation can be termed the original historicity of revelation. By the same token, revelation is such that it accomplishes history and thus points beyond history. This aspect of revelation can be termed the ultimate historicity of revelation. Ad (c): Revelation is genuine because it is a real event. It is a real event not only historically and not only in the sense of original or ultimate historicity, but also in the sense that it produces newness both in itself and in its history. Newness is the genuine content of revelation which is embodied in new forms. Ad (d): Revelation is above all the revelation of revelation (as I call it below: direct self-revelation) because revelation as an absolute fact possesses everything belonging to revelation in an ad intra, immanent way. Considered ad intra, revelation is factual, original, ultimate, and genuine. At the same time, revelation entails its ad extra or external realization in such a way that it is a full, original, ultimate, and genuine fact. Revelation is real in all these senses: it is real in itself as absolute self-enrichment, and it is real also in the sense of producing history. Ultimately, revelation in the historical sense flows into revelation in the absolute sense. The latter generates the former and the former actualizes the latter It may be asked if we can call revelation not only absolute but also entirely supranatural. The use of “supranatural” belongs to the vocabulary developed especially during the eighteenth century with the intention to emphasize the absolutely transcendent origin and character of revelation. However, the term presupposes a notion of nature which is difficult to understand appropriately today. Theologically, nevertheless, revelation is supranatural in the sense that its entire reality originates in the creative power of the divine and it does not originate in the strict sense in the creature. Yet revelation is closely connected to the created order inasmuch as it is intended to realize the salvation of that order; in this more general sense, the created order is part and parcel of the general realm of revelation. Because of the difficulties of the traditional notions of nature, I  find it better to emphasize the absolute character of revelation both in its ad intra and ad extra dimensions.

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2. The Presuppositions of Revelation By presuppositions in this context I understand the natural factors that contributed to the gradual emergence of the complex meaning of revelation in history. These factors have been formed in what I  call the “natural situation” in which human beings have found themselves from the earliest times. Human beings emerged as moments of this natural situation and found this situation meaningful in an understanding of themselves and their place in the world. This situation is composed of determining factors; thus, insofar as we overview and describe these factors, we consider them as presuppositions of essential notions human beings have developed, such as the notion of divine revelation. I consider here the cosmological, theological, anthropological, epistemological, historical, and existential factors. These presuppositions seem sufficiently general not to belong to a particular cultural period of humanity’s history. At some points, these presuppositions overlap, but they are nevertheless distinct and, at the same time, interrelated. We recognize these presuppositions as soon as we reflect on our naïve understanding of the world and ourselves. This understanding persists even today in spite of all the changes the sciences have brought about in our knowledge of the world and ourselves during the past few centuries.3 The cosmological presupposition of revelation is provided by the premodern natural view of the universe. According to this view, the universe has two characteristic parts:  the earth and the sky. In most examples, the earth is fundamentally feminine, passive, receptive, generated; the sky is masculine, active, abundant, and generative. The two factors, earth and sky belong together as the two basic principles of the universe; they refer to one another in a continuous and multifarious relationship. In this primal cosmological framework the sky is seen as the origin of the earth; the sky gives birth, produces or even creates the earth in some sense

3 On this topic see C. S. Lewis, The Discarded Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967). Therein Lewis describes the underlying worldview which determined ancient and medieval literature. Beginning with such authors as Cicero, Lucanus, Statius, and Apuleius, he points out that no part of the ancient and medieval literature can be properly understood without the characteristic view of the ancient authors, their theologically interpreted geocentric view of the universe, human beings, and history. “The Pattern,” as Lewis calls this view, is not simply pre-Copernican geocentrism; rather, it is a universal interpretation of the cosmos in which the earth possesses the central place embedded in the “spheres of the heavens,” that is, the planetary globes and the “fixed stars.” The pre-Copernican view of the universe offered an understanding of the cosmos as an organic unity in which human beings possess a central place in order that they can view the circulation of the stellar bodies and accommodate their entire life to these movements. This universal understanding permeates the whole attitude, general features, and particular views of the ancient and medieval authors so that no important part of their worldview can be understood without this “pattern.” See also Franz Cumont’s words in Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, p. 35.

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out of its own reality. Moreover, it is the sky that supplies the earth with its vital elements, such as water, light, or fire.4 If the sky is not merely seen as the source of natural life only—as was the case from the earliest generations of humanity—then it gives the earth higher-level knowledge as well, such as an exact pattern of the alterations of day and night, seasons and years, but also the distinctions between useful and harmful, good and evil, or truth and falsity. It is the brightness of the sky that expresses a splendid superiority day by day, a superiority which has become designated as the “divine” (divinus, deus, theos).5 Accordingly, it is the sky that possesses knowledge about what is divine and what is not, what is sacred and what is profane, and what belongs to “religion” and what has nothing to do with it. If there is some form of revelatory knowledge, then it is given by the sky to the earth, from what is above to what is below, from the active to the passive, or again from the divine to the human. In the apparently active character of the sky, the possibility of divine revelation is already enciphered. At the early stages of human history, the framework is of a natural significance, but in time the encoded contents of higher-level conceptions evolved on the basis of a sufficiently abstract mindset and a proper vocabulary. In primal cosmology, then, the basic relations of what has become understood as divine revelation in later epochs are already prepared to some extent. If this cosmology is personified—which naturally happens already in early human history—then the sky becomes identical with the godhead itself, or at least with the place where the gods live. The personhood of these divine beings is in many ways close to our contemporary conception in the sense that these gods are self-conscious agents with mind, will, and emotion—perhaps even with bodies of some sort. If the sky governs the earth, then it is actually the personal will of the divine agents that is effective in nature, society, and individuals. In the theological presupposition of divine revelation, the gods of the sky arrange earthly processes and even minutely determine everything that happens “below.” Inasmuch as the stars show regularities of a mathematical nature, they configure earthly events as well and in the same manner. The planets visibly move; they rise and set and are thus different from the “fixed” stars which show only a slow movement. If there are differences in rank and nobility, then the stars are obviously nobler, more elevated, and more distant, and the sky in its entirety is even nobler and more elevated than the stars themselves. Even if the sun gives light to the earth, it still sets and dies every day. Thus the god, expressed by the sun, cannot be wholly identical with the most prominent heavenly body. The highest gods live beyond the planets and perhaps even beyond the stars. Perplexing as all the movements of heavenly bodies may be, some observers must have come to the idea at a certain point that all these activities fit into one single pattern. Basic human relations must have been instructive. Man and woman form a natural whole; in spite of their different biological makeup, they constitute a functional 4 For example, see Henri Frankfort, Before Philosophy:  The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (Harmondsworth, Middlesex:  Penguin Books, 1951); Jan Assmann, The Search for God in Ancient Egypt (Ithaca, NY: Cornel University Press, 2001). 5 In many ancient and contemporary languages the word for the “divine” goes back to the root word for daylight, and the word for the human being is related to the word for the earth.

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unity. They are capable of effective cooperation and the production of life. Nature in general shows many correlations of a similar kind; it is construed so that hunger and thirst can be satisfied, shelter can be provided, and individual and social life can be organized as well as maintained. Analogically, the universe is not a dispersed heap of random activities, but contains an overall order and relatively harmonious arrangement. Sky and earth fit together; the rising and setting of the planets and the stars form a unity; life and death makes a natural whole. The universe is one organic system which functions just like how biological bodies function on earth. And just as biological bodies possess life, so the universe is also permeated, governed, and maintained by its own “life,” the world-soul, some conscious power of a divine nature. Nevertheless, the predominance of death in naïve experience calls for an explanation in the framework of the unified pattern. What is the reason of the tragic fact and effects of death? Why is nature perpetually passing away? Why does the sun, the most shining heavenly body, set, that is to say, die every day? A possible answer to these questions may have been that the dominant pattern of movements is not the only one in the universe. There must be a more perfect pattern in which there is no death, destruction, setting, or passing away, in which the sun eternally shines and the planets never set, where human beings are never at odds and societies live in a perpetual peace and where humanity and nature are not divided and the gods dwell among us. This more elevated pattern must have been changed into our present one by the force of death, some cosmic fall or a catastrophe, or perhaps by an evil god or even a divine conspiracy. Since sickness, death, and destruction are negative forces, they should be avoided and the present pattern of things must be restored to the more elevated and less deficient one. Such a restoration, nevertheless, requires the power of the gods, or just of one god, a savior divinity. It must have been a crucial development in the understanding of the universe when some people discovered the notion that the power and authority of divine beings of the sky are not diminished by their apparent death and resurrection, their settings and risings, but rather strengthened in a significant way. Just as death is transformed into life, mud into soil, decay into vegetation, so also the pattern of universal downfall may be transformed into a new pattern of eternal stability at a certain point of time; or perhaps it is already transformed in reality but visible only to the clairvoyant, the prophet, the spiritual person whom other people are called to follow in their individual and social life.6 6 “Let us consider, beloved, how the Master continually proves to us that there will be a future resurrection, of which he has made the first-fruits, in Nature by raising the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead! Let us look, beloved, at the resurrection which is taking place at its proper season. Day and night show us a resurrection. The night sleeps, the day arises: the day departs, night comes on. Let us take the crops: how and in what way does the sowing take place? The sower went forth and cast each of the seeds into the ground, and they fall on to the ground, parched and bare and suffer decay; then from their decay the greatness of the providence of the Master raises them up, and from one grain more grow and bring forth fruit.” Clement of Rome, “Letter to the Corinthians,” § 24, in The Apostolic Fathers, trans. Kirsopp Lake (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), vol. I, pp. 51–3.

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An integral part of the cosmological and theological understanding of the universe is the notion that human beings, as observers of the sky, are themselves partakers of the mysterious events of heavens. Not merely the sky, but also the earth is divine in some way. The sky determines everything, including the life and death of human beings as well. And at least in this sense, that is, in the sense of being governed by the sky, humans belong to the sky. Inasmuch as human beings are able to recognize and follow the gods, or even interact with them, humans—or at least some of them—must have an intimate relation with the gods. Human beings—or at least some of them—are gods in a certain sense. Human beings—or at least some of them—cannot originate in the earth; their upright stature, their characteristic face, their eyes, their noble behavior, lofty ways of thinking and acting, all refer to the possibility that they came from the sky’s splendor. Human beings may have been stars once and may become stars again—a notion we find in a number of religious formations of ancient cultures. If this is the case, then they are present on the earth to carry out an important task by which they contribute to the realization of the will of the gods—for instance, by applying the mathematical regularities observable in the heavens to their own private and communal life. Thus they contribute to the restoration and maintenance of the heavenly order in the universe. Humans—or at least some of them—are in an intimate connection with the divine and must be natural recipients of communications of the inhabitants of the sky.7 In the previous paragraph we already entered the realm of the anthropological presupposition of a natural notion of divine revelation. Human beings are capable of receiving knowledge on and from the sky, that is, on and from the divine; in some way, they are divine themselves. The sky certainly communicates with itself: the order of the universe and the specific constellations of the stars and the planets reveal that they talk to one another or perhaps even produce a heavenly music, the music of the spheres—their characteristic mode of communication. As part of this inner conversation, dialectic, and music, the same entities must communicate with the earth as well. They communicate with the earth through their rising and setting, shining and eclipsing, by their significant or insignificant constellations and angles. If they clearly communicate with the vegetative and animal nature, even more so do they communicate with human beings. Does not the

7 A detailed account of the role of the cosmological presupposition in the form of what I term “cosmo-theology” can be found in my article, Balázs M. Mezei, “Demythologizing Christian Philosophy: An Outline,” Logos i ethos 34 (2013), 109–46. See also my Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, p. 34 sq.; 252 sq. My expression of cosmo-theology originates in the term “cosmo-theism” coined by Lamoignon de Malesherbes and applied in our time by Helmuth von Glasenapp and Jan Assmann. An alternative origin of the term can be traced back to Kant’s distinction between “cosmotheology” and “ontotheology” in the Critique of Pure Reason (ed. and trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W.  Wood. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1998, B 659/A 631). Assmann uses “cosmotheism” in his various writings, such as in Moses the Egyptian (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 142.

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moon influence visible physical objects on the earth? Do not the planets clearly determine attitudes and actions of humans, animals, and plants? Humans especially must then be connatural with the gods, the godhead, the divine, so that they—or at least some of them—can receive special and general knowledge from the gods in the sky. Just as the changes in weather are dependent on the movements of the visible gods, more complicated developments of social nature must be dependent on them as well. The higher the importance of such developments, the more elevated is the heavenly authority on which they are dependent. To find the right ruler for the kingdom, to start a battle, or to found a city, there must be an approval given by the highest godhead that is beyond the visible gods of the planets and the stars. This divinity is the maker, the creator, and the ruler of everything, whose power is present everywhere, even while he surely lives beyond the visible universe, beyond the sphere of the fixed stars—perhaps even beyond the Polar Star which became identified as the unmoving mover of the universe about three thousand years ago. But the king of everything must have a higher nature and a higher place to live, a metaphysical place or, as Plato writes, a topos hyperouranios, a place beyond the heavens. This ruler of the universe is the sovereign of every single human being and every human society in all their endeavors, aspirations, and destinies; this ruler thus determines the history of every nation on the earth. This ruler therefore is the ruler of history, inasmuch as the notion of history is available; he leads the entire earthly existence to its fulfillment. Human beings clearly recognize that they need such a leadership. The existential presupposition of divine revelation is the continually experienced contingency of the human condition, a contingency completely consonant with the unstable and chaotic state of the earth beneath the well-ordered movements of the heavens. This contingency is an everyday experience; the defenselessness experienced at an early and old age, death and sickness, plagues and earthquakes, physical and spiritual depression, sudden and tragic changes in one’s life, collapse of whole societies in catastrophes, revolutions, or wars, and most especially the perpetual ambiguity of human life—all this definitely presupposes and requires the intervention of a well-ordered empire from above the earthly conditions. Human beings demand divine revelation in their whole existence; they ask the divine to intervene, to help, to assist when they see the uncertain or even tragic nature of all earthly events. Even those human beings that are proud of being self-reliant may come to the insight of their need for a higher intervention when they face their own fragility. But most human beings do not remain silent even when life appears to be happy and satisfying; they are sure that this kind of life is a gift of the godhead in the sky to which the appropriate answer is gratitude and praise. There is another aspect of the existential presupposition of the notion of revelation. From the earliest times, human beings have experienced not only their own deep sense of need, but also the source by which their needs can be satisfied.

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The experience of their own poverty presupposes an underlying experience of richness, that is, the existence of a source of satisfaction and fulfillment. Some people did not have enough drinking water, others however had plenty; some societies did not possess lands for pasturing and agriculture, others however had more than enough; some individuals were not able to have good instruments for production, others continuously developed ever better tools. In everyday processes of knowledge, the general fact of ignorance presupposes the knowledge of ignorance. Thus, as it must have become clear, existential poverty presupposes existential richness in an underlying form. This general form becomes factual in the periods of blessedness, well-being, and understanding. Just as ignorance presupposes knowledge, so the earthly, finite, human existence presupposes heavenly or divine existence. The very fact of this insight may have been an additional source of the notion of divine revelation; in this fact, the ultimate source of natural and supernatural knowledge becomes apparent and, in a certain sense, accessible for human beings. The above description of the presuppositions of the notion of revelation is not meant to be ironic; neither do I mean to suggest that the notion of revelation is in any way unjustified. Quite the reverse, by summarizing the natural aptitude of the human condition to conceive and understand revelation (in its various forms), I stress the roots of such a conception in our historical and contemporary understandings of reality. I argue below in more detail that an approach to revelation, based on some mental or natural presuppositions, is not the least contrary to the proper understanding of revelation. Certainly, it would be impossible to conceive revelation without the fact of revelation; our presuppositions are to be seen in the perspective of this fact. The scientific worldview has changed our knowledge of reality, but it has not changed our naïve perceptions and the mental factors connected to them; and it has not changed the very important fact that what we call the naïve view of the universe is an expression of a deeper structure which must be explored. Revelation is to be seen in view of our naïve perceptions and the mental frame deriving from them. To put it philosophically, what we traditionally call “revelation” is a par excellence expression of the structure exemplified by our naïve view of reality. “Par excellence” means here that revelation in a more explicit form, as the self-revelation of the divine, is a unique development, but a development nonetheless. Revelation in the strict sense might be seen as offered to a receiver entirely unprepared in every possible sense, but the fact is that the notion of revelation is profoundly foreshadowed in all aspects of our life. The very existence of our naïve presuppositions calls for the reality of the notion, or at least makes it understandable that various forms of the notion have been ubiquitous in our history. It is equally understandable that this history can be considered in many ways precisely in terms of the development of the notion of divine revelation. The divine as infinite and self-sufficient—as it must have seemed for premodern human beings—is in a perennial communication with itself; it talks to itself, it is related to itself, it is dynamically contained by itself in the highest

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imaginable sense. It is a thinking thinking itself, self-thought or noeseos noesis, as Aristotle put it.8 A thinking thinking itself is a revelation revealing itself to itself—not in the sense of the discursive process we know from our own mental functioning, but in the sense this mental functioning presupposes, namely, in the sense of the total and complete unity of thinking which makes partial thinking, thus also the discursive reasoning, possible and factual. Moreover, the divine is pure self-love. But love cannot be without loving something other than itself—thus the reason for the existence of the non-divine is apparently found. The self-sufficient divine is self-love, self-existence, self-revelation—but in order to be even more so, it “needs” the universe which it produces, loves, and with which it communicates. The ancient relationship between the sky and the earth, the divine and the human thereby gains a new clarity. While in ancient times this relationship was seen as the expression of divine love for some persons or peoples, now the relationship becomes universal, that is, its object is the universe itself. This encompassing divine love proves to be the expression of an eternal self-love in which the divine infinitely loves itself—as the divine love between the persons of the Christian Trinity clearly points out. This infinite divine love, however, coincides in important ways with the love for the created universe. The latter kind of love does not merely mirror, but—seen from the human point of view—definitively expresses the self-affection of the godhead. In the above summary we can see the natural basis of the notion of divine selfrevelation in more or less naïve perceptions of reality. As a basis, it is not able to produce higher notions of revelation but makes their emergence possible. Many aspects of this natural view determine our spontaneous thinking even today in various ways, and some of them are present in a more abstract thinking as well, such as in the arts or the sciences. Indeed, the naïve view of the universe, which dominated human understanding before the rise of modernity, can be detected not only in simple beliefs today but also in all the complicated structures of various contemporary professions and disciplines. Divine revelation as self-revelation can be considered as the latest and most sophisticated structure built upon this most ancient conception. Yet we must add immediately that this “development” is not of the kind of a mechanism and the notion of self-revelation cannot be determined merely by its natural sources. Reflections of many generations have been needed to uncover the meaning of self-revelation, and much work is to be done for the proper exploration of this meaning in our context today. The effort required here, as I show below, is neither purely philosophical, nor theological; it has important consequences for both fields as well as for other branches of our contemporary culture.

8 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1074b. Cf. McKeon’s translation as “a thinking on thinking,” Aristotle 1941, p. 885.

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3. The Semantics of Revelation It is important to determine the meaning of “revelation” in relation to similar terms in use today. There is already a slight modification of meaning if we change from the verb “to reveal” to the noun “revelation.” While we tend to use the verb in everyday circumstances, such as “she revealed her plan,” the noun has a naturally more abstract meaning relatively close to the religious and theological ones. “Revelations” in daily politics (such as the revelation of hidden personal stories or alleged bank accounts of some politicians) suggest a particular, even if often just superficial importance. This importance is obviously rooted in the religious and theological prehistory of the term. Without the extraordinary character of the traditional theological meaning, “revelations” would not impress us so strongly today. Still, it is often too pretentious to use “revelation” for phenomena other than the religious ones. The verb “to reveal” can be naturally used, as is obvious, in a number of cases independent of religion. “Revealing” is semantically close to such verbs as “opening,” “disclosing,” “uncovering,” “manifesting,” and “demonstrating.”9 In everyday use, the verb “to reveal” refers to the communication of something hitherto hidden. “To reveal” can include, however, natural, unintentional, or else intentional revealing. We can say, for instance, that some valleys on the planet Mars naturally reveal the work of some water-like fluid, or that the characteristic growth of certain trees in a certain geographical area naturally reveals the dominant direction of the wind. Unintentional revealing in the proper sense can be carried out exclusively by beings with the capacity of intentional action. For example, a human person may unintentionally reveal his or her mood by spontaneous actions or just by his or her facial expression. In an indirect way, objects can also reveal unintentionally plans or actions of intentional agents just by their occurrence, position, composition, or condition. Finally, intentional revealing takes place whenever there is an intention to communicate something either verbally or by way of certain symbols. In any case, the intentionality that is present in the act of revealing is decisive. Similarly, the content of natural, unintentional, or intentional action may possess kinds of concealment or hiddenness. Something can be concealed in a natural way, such as the roots of a tree hidden from natural vision. Things can be hidden in unintentional ways, such as the palm of my hand if I hold a physical object. By grasping an object, I do not mean to hide my palm; what I mean to do is merely to take hold of the object. My palm’s becoming covered and hidden by the object belongs to the physical necessities of the movement of my hand. Finally, I  can

9 I have chosen to analyze these verbs in more detail. Some other verbs could be involved here too, such as “telling” or “speaking,” “imparting,” or “unveiling.” The first two, however, are too specific as they express fundamentally verbal communication, even though “telling” can refer to the disclosing of an important, but not primary, content too (as, for instance, in “her behavior was telling enough”). I find “imparting” close to the meaning of disclosing; and “unveiling” is the exact equivalent of “revealing.”

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hide something intentionally when I do not want to show it. I can hide something deeply and permanently, such as a bad memory of childhood spent in the terror of political oppression, or just temporarily, as when I  wait for the right time to reveal it. I can hide something physical or mental, such as a psychological feature of mine, or a friend in my house if unjustly persecuted. I can hide something out of discretion, with the intention to mislead others, or just for reasons unknown even to myself. Hiding and revealing belong together. If I  reveal something, I  simultaneously acknowledge the fact of having something hidden previously; and if I hide something, I  simultaneously acknowledge its possibility of being revealed. I cannot hide something that is not revealed in a certain sense or in some way, and I cannot reveal something that is not hidden in a certain sense and in some way. I can even say that whenever I reveal something, I hide something, or that whenever I  hide something, I  reveal something. For instance, when I  reveal some characteristic feature of mine, I hide other features to some extent, and when I hide a certain feature, I reveal another one in some way, such as a certain facial expression by which I cover my act of hiding. Still, it would be false to say, paradoxically, that what I hide I reveal, or what I reveal I hide at the same time and in the same sense. I either hide or reveal something at the same time and in the same sense. Yet every act of revealing or hiding entails related acts of hiding or revealing respectively. In this way, hiding and revealing are intertwined in their concrete instances and are determined with respect to each other. Revealing is the general word for what can be expressed, with important changes in meaning, as opening, disclosing, manifesting, demonstrating, unveiling, or uncovering. When I open something, this something can in principle be a secret; but often it is just a tin can, that is, a physical object. “To open” is a verb of degree; if I open something, it is rarely implied that I open it all the way. More often I open it to some extent, such as a door, or open it sufficiently to reach my end, such as a tin can. A book can be opened “fully,” but the meaning of this is merely the sufficient extent to have a look at the book or to read it. I can certainly open my eyes, that is, I carry out the act of seeing. Literally, however, it is not my eyes that I open, but only the eyelids. Or even if it is my eyes I “open”—in accordance with the everyday use—this does not mean more than giving them the concrete possibility of receiving enough light to see. I can open my mind as well, but this means only the acquiring of the necessary cognitive attitude to understand certain information. To open my mind entirely would mean to be maximally attentive to a certain object at a given time; an absolute opening of the mind is a theoretical possibility, but its meaning is far from clear. “Opening” refers most often to the act of opening. As a noun, however, it is a property of a thing, such as a cave or the clouds in the sky showing an “opening.” Either as a verb or a noun, “opening” is about a certain measure of openness; full opening—of a book, a mouth, or a door—is understood as the sufficient measure of openness. Disclosing also has the meaning of degree. As opposed to the verb “to open,” “to disclose” is about the content of the thing I open. I open the shell, but not its

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content; I open a door, but in the strict sense not the room to which it leads.10 If I open myself, I become receptive to what I open myself or I give away some piece of information otherwise private or secret. Opening oneself is most especially making oneself accessible to something or somebody. Disclosing is unveiling the content of what I open. The content I unveil has a certain physical shape or an abstract feature or some other character. Human persons may disclose their lovable features after some time of acquaintance; they disclose their thoughts, desires, plans, hopes, will, and so on. They do not disclose “themselves.” Disclosing refers to some context in which the feature or the character disclosed is inherent. What I disclose or unveil, moreover, is opened up with respect to the context which hid it before; but perhaps not with respect to its own nature. I open a box and show its content. But the content itself may be just another box, or a definite thing the nature of which is not disclosed by the act of unveiling. In other words, disclosing is about disclosing some content with respect to its milieu; it is an act which does not entail the disclosing of the disclosed object itself. I note, however, that while the verb “to disclose” has the meaning I just delineated, the noun “disclosure” possesses a more general meaning. Disclosure is not so much about a certain content that I disclose to some extent, but rather about the full opening of a thing in the concrete or abstract sense.11 Manifesting is about disclosing or opening in an active and important sense. What I  manifest becomes both in itself and in its relations obvious, evident, or clear. I cannot manifest a secret “to some extent,” or I cannot manifest my feelings “to some degree.” If I manifest my feelings, they become simply manifest and this entails that they are sufficiently clear both in themselves and in relations to other things. Manifesting some content cannot be partial; it is not about disclosing a mixture of hiddenness and revealedness. If I make something manifest, I make it definitely obvious. The act as well as the object has a well-defined character and a strong emphasis. Manifesting is about something concrete; it is about something relatively important; and it is about an act that is similarly concrete and important in a given context. I cannot manifest something partial or insignificant, and I  cannot manifest something hesitantly. When something becomes manifest, it has a well-defined character and it is usually the result of an act of a similarly welldefined character.

10 To open a room and to open the door of that room mean the same thing; but what is the same thing? It is the opening of the room, and not the door, as to open a door serves the purpose of opening the room. It is not the door I want to enter, but the room. We tend to use the verb “to open” with respect to some element by which we can have access to what we wish to reach by the act of opening. 11 In spite of the French origin of “disclose” (from Old French desclos) the English meaning has become more emphatic. “Disclosure” is already a sixteenth-century English development of the verb and possesses an even more comprehensive meaning, not to mention its poetic undertone.

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In a religious sense, we often speak of God’s revelation or disclosure, and sometimes about his “opening,” “disclosing,” “uncovering,” or even “manifesting.” God’s opening can involve the opening of our heart or the opening of his ears to a prayer. More importantly, his openness is such that the concrete acts of opening become possible. God can disclose his will, his mysteries, his support or prohibition, his plan, and his mind. He can be understood as disclosing himself in such a way that we conceive the general or special acts of divine disclosure. God can uncover secrets or even physical objects by carrying out corresponding actions. The paramount action of God, however, is his revelation tout court. God’s revelation is the most fundamental religious notion that determines the meaning of similar expressions. We tend to speak of “God’s revelation” even if it is not the strict theological notion of divine revelation which we refer to but rather a more general understanding. It is this general activity of revelation that defines all the related words in this context. On the basis of revelation, God is properly understood as the subject of actions of opening, disclosing, uncovering, and manifesting both in the concrete and the general senses; and both in the active and the reflexive senses. God is able to open something and open himself; to disclose something and disclose himself; or again to uncover something and uncover himself. God is able to make something manifest in a concrete case and also himself in a certain situation. All these meanings originate in the meaning of revelation as God’s most central activity. When I  say that God revealed his will, his intention, or his salvific purpose, I make use of a conception of revelation that is beyond the less significant aspects of God’s revealing activity. By God’s revelation we tend to understand today the universal, encompassing, overarching activity of God in which the reality and meaning of all things are disclosed either factually—as in the Bible—or virtually— as in an eschatological event. The addressee of this disclosure is not limited to a certain number of people, a given nation or a race; it is not even a period of time which we denote as the central historical period of revelation. We may know from several sources that God’s “revelation” was given to his Chosen People at a certain time, formulated in the Scriptures, or that full revelation was and will be realized in the person of Christ. Still, the meaning of revelation as God’s pure giving activity has almost completely lost its limited, strictly qualified meanings in our contemporary understanding. While this understanding is in many ways imprecise and theological reflections are needed to clarify it, we are still inclined to sustain this understanding as the most important point of reference even in the framework of theological and historical constraints of relevant semantics. It must be noted at this point that “revelation” is a verbal (or in other use, deverbal) noun which is derived from the Latin form of the verb “to reveal” (revelare), just like “organization” is derived from “to organize” (neo-Latin organisare). As a noun, it may express various aspects of the process of reification of the verb into a noun form. Thus, for instance, revelation may refer to a thing, such as the body of revealed doctrine, or else it may refer to the more general result of divine activity not directly conceivable as a concrete thing. In both cases, we need to recognize the verbal origin of the noun and see that even

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in its fully reified meaning revelation points back to an ongoing activity of divine revealing. These two approaches to revelation have theoretical implications, because the reified understanding of the noun suggests that revelation is just a doctrine or a body of doctrines exemplified in an empirical object which can be pointed to. However, the more general, gerund-like approach to “revelation” makes it clear that even behind the verbal noun the power of the verb is present, especially in the case of such an underlying activity which belongs to the core of divine being. It is essential to realize that revelation in the reified meaning can never give the full picture of revelation as the fundamental divine activity. The divine is never a thing but “pure actuality” and as such it is revelation in the original sense of the verb. A similar case is to be observed in the proposition “God is love.” Here “love” is a verbal noun which nevertheless points back to the underlying reality of the divine in terms of its loving activity. While God’s love is rightly seen to have been expressed especially in strictly historical actions, such as the incarnation, it would still be implausible to restrict God’s love to a well-defined historical framework and thus deny the universal availability and effectiveness of God’s love in a sense entailing not only a universal history but also God himself. We find the beginnings and the first developments of this notion in the Bible: in the notion of humanity’s love for God, in God’s faithfulness to his people, in his love as that of a bridegroom for his bride, and most importantly in the Johannine scriptures where “love” is seen as central to God. The loving character of God, that is, love as the essential feature in the life of the Trinity, has come to the fore during century-long reflections in philosophy, theology, and mysticism.12 Theologically speaking, God has always been and will always be love. In the perspective of history, nevertheless, we see how the notion of divine love appeared in the sources and developed into a universal and theologically sophisticated understanding. This development is important in terms of the history of ideas, but it is even more important as an intrinsic evolution of the notion leading to the understanding of God’s love both in the ad intra and the ad extra dimensions and especially with respect to the theological and historical interactions of these dimensions.13 In a similar way, we tend to understand God’s revelation as universal revelation, a revelation which is valid in every age and in every place, that is, universally given to all possible addressees of the universe. While we know that revelation was realized in a definitive form at a certain point of human history—“under

12 Plato considers love as an essential feature of reality; for Aristotle, God moves the universe by love; Augustine emphasizes the mutual love of God and the believer; and Ramon Llull, the first important mystic of the Middle Ages, developed a philosophy of love which became influential in the centuries to come. 13 Catholic thinkers are typically concerned with the theology of love, as, for instance, the thought of John Paul II clearly shows. And a central subject matter of the philosophy of Jean-Luc Marion is precisely the erotic dimension of reality. Miklós Vetö’s L’élargissement de la métaphysique (Paris: Hermann, 2012) is an overall metaphysics of love.

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Pontius Pilate”—yet we are aware of the fact that real history is merely an aspect of God’s revelation, an aspect which is completed by other aspects, such as its utter fulfillment “in the end of the world.” In this dynamism from the particular to the universal, from the limited to the absolute, the notion and reality of revelation as unqualified giving is expressed. We may be inclined to accept a narrow understanding of “revelation” in our theoretical considerations, but we would still have to force ourselves to accept that the meaning of revelation is confined merely to the historical forms we have inherited from earlier generations. It is especially in the theological sense that we connect the expression “divine revelation” to a general notion of revelation, that is, “universal revelation.” We may associate the notion of universal revelation with outdated religious worldviews or valid theological notions; in neither case, however, can we avoid the implicit or explicit reference to the notion of revelation as an unqualified activity of giving. What we witness in the content of divine revelation today is the result of a remarkable semantic development. The notion of revelation emerged from sources of revelation, such as the Scriptures, the traditions, and theoretical reflections. Nevertheless, these sources underdetermine the spectacular development of the notion. On the basis of real historical sources, without taking into account the dynamism of the notion itself, we could not sufficiently understand this spectacular evolution. The notion of revelation today gives the impression that it would be available in an explicit form from the very beginning of its history. This impression originates not so much in our historical sources as rather in the intrinsic importance of the notion itself. It is this importance that creates the historical perspective in which we conceive revelation. And it is the same importance that directs our attention from particular historical developments to the content of the notion. To attribute the formation of the notion of revelation merely to historical factors is to disregard the fact that the historical perspective is an achievement of the structure and dynamism intrinsic in the notion itself.14 In a theological perspective we can say that the notion of revelation is the result of the divine act of revelation, and that this divine act produces not only the reality of revelation in its theological sense, immanently or ad intra, but also the historical perspective of revelation with its real developments ad extra. The two dimensions belong together, but a merely historical understanding of revelation does not disclose the genuine significance of the notion and even less the significance of the divine activity inherent in revelation. 14 Below, I make repeated use of the expressions of “dynamism” and “dynamic.” I mean thereby to accentuate an immanent force or energy both in the phenomena and in their relations to one another. When there is a “dynamic” phenomenon, it has the inner energy to change, develop, to be linked to other phenomena in a number of ways, and thus to evolve into a higher-level entity. This latter may be more universal, more encompassing, or more individual at the same time. The “dynamic character” of a phenomenon expresses the presence and the efficacy of such an inner force or energy.

17

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17

4. The Historical Origins of Revelation The notion of revelation, however, has a tangible history. The forms of revelation in the Tanakh are manifold: God’s appearances, communications, oracles, or mighty deeds in the history of the Israelites are indeed of paramount importance. The central event is God’s appearance to Moses and the making of the covenant with the Israelites. There are appearances and communications of Yahweh under various disguises, such as in a cloud (Exod. 13:21), in the burning bush (Exod. 3:2; Gen. 15:17), in thunders and lightning (Exod. 19:16), or in a still small voice (1 Kgs 19:12). Most importantly there is the pronounced and written expression of his will to his chosen people in the form of the commandments. Whether we consider these events in the perspective of the Yahwist or the Elohist author, the prophetic literature or the representatives of the Deuteronomist movement, God appears in all cases as a spiritual personality similar to a mighty leader who governs his people and property in accordance with his will. His revelations are communications of his will, appearances of his person in natural or psychological forms, or in the historical expressions of his love for the chosen people. On a higher level, Yahweh appears as the creator and ruler of the universe, the governor of historical events and the fulfillment of human history. In an even broader perspective, his cosmic glory is praised as the expression of his mightiness in nature and history.15 René Latoruelle distinguishes two ways of considering the notion of revelation in the Tanakh.16 The first way is the via expositionis in which a systematic perspective is applied. According to this perspective, the unity of revelation is given in the “word of the Lord” which can appear in a number of forms. Besides the historical deeds, appearances, visions, and miraculous events, we find also the Song of Songs, a text traditionally understood as describing the loving relationship between the Lord and his people. The unity of the word permeates all aspects of these ancient scriptures and contributes to a unified view of divine revelation. The second way, the via inventionis, is based on the chronology of the development of the unified view of revelation. Here one can emphasize the gradual emergence of the unified view, the lack of a technical vocabulary, or again the significance of the distinction between the theological perspective on the one hand, and the historical perspective in which the unity of revelation is not yet articulated on the other hand. Not even the Septuagint unifies the notion of revelation terminologically or dogmatically. As a result, “revelation” in the Tanakh remains a diversiform term.17

15 Cf. Walter Brueggemann, “Symmetry and Extremity in the Images of YHWH,” in Leo G. Perdue (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the Hebrew Bible (London:  Blackwell, 2001), pp. 241–57. 16 René Latourelle, Theology of Revelation, including a Commentary on the Constitution “Dei verbum” of Vatican II (Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 1967), p. 43. 17 Gerhard and Friedrich Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. and abridged by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1985).

18

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In the New Testament, the situation is more complex: there is a general understanding of God’s appearance in the person of Christ, but the exact dimensions and significance of this appearance, its relationship either to Old Testament appearances or the various forms of revelation remains amorphous. The expressions used by the New Testament authors to designate the notion of revelation refer most particularly to two fundamental points: the appearance of God’s work in the person of Jesus, and the imminent end of the world. Jesus appears as God’s revelation; his ministry, death, and resurrection are seen in the perspective of the “restoration of all things” (ἀποκατάστασις πάντων).18 The first community, as depicted by the Acts of the Apostles, was seen as the group of the elect that remain unharmed even during and following “the time for establishing all that God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old” (Acts 3:21).19 God is then understood as governing the world from the beginning to the end and conveying the necessary knowledge of what his government demands. Most importantly, by his own messenger, the Son of Man, he reveals his specific will concerning individuals and groups of individuals alike.20 There is a number of verbs used in the New Testament in a sense close to our meaning of revelation, such as gnorizo (γνωρίζω, to make known, e.g., Jn 15:15), emphanizo (ἐμφανίζω, to manifest, e.g., Jn 14:22), phaneroo (φανερόω, to appear, e.g., Mk 16:12), deloo (δηλόω, to make manifest or evident, e.g., 1 Cor. 3:13), or apokalypto (ἀποκαλύπτω, to disclose or reveal, e.g., Lk. 10:22). The exact meaning of these words remains undefined and they are difficult to harmonize without a unified perspective. What can be seen on a general level is that the related verbs refer to a revealing and, consequently, to the knowledge of a secret. The knowledge of this secret is of the utmost importance for human beings and their communities. Yet the revelation of this secret is still far from the complex notion of divine revelation, either immanent or historical, of later centuries. God’s work is present in Jesus and this presence is considered in some way as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. But it is a further question as to what this presence actually meant for the first generations of Christians. It may have meant a permanent spiritual presence of Christ in the individual and the community; or in the physical form of a mystical transformation, as Paul suggests in the Second Letter to the Corinthians (12:4); or again in ways recalling Hellenistic and Gnostic interpretations, as in the Gospel of John. A seminal notion of some kind of divine

18 Cf. Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis (Leiden: Brill, 2013). 19 RSVCE translates ἀποκατάστασις πάντων as “establishing all,” which disagrees with most of the translations (mentioning restoration or restitution) and is incongruous with other uses of the verb ἀποκαθίστημι, such as Mt. 12:13 (“And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, whole like the other.”). Perhaps more importantly, RSVCE deviates from the basic meanings of ἀποκατάστασις, for which, see Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis, p. 1. 20 Cf. Delbert Burkett, The Son of Man Debate (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2004).

19

1. What Is Revelation?

19

self-revelation is emphasized in the New Testament, but the outline and content of this notion remains diverse.21 The Latin revelatio is the direct translation of the Greek ἀποκάλυψις (apocalypse). The Greek word is a translation of the Hebrew ‫( ג ּ ַָלע‬gala) which is used in a number of senses in the Tanakh. In 1 Sam. 3:21—“And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord”—gala (“revealed”) is translated by the Septuagint with the appropriate form of ἀποκάλυψις, the ultimate basis of the New Testament notion of revelation. Revelation in the Old Testament typically means prophecy, vision, acquiring of secret knowledge with a crucial importance for the community. Already in the socalled apocalyptic writings of the Old Testament, especially in the Book of Daniel, “revelation” emerges as a genre, that is, a form of prophetic communication of political and religious significance. The central theme of this form is the imminent judgment of the world by God and his angels; the messenger is a prophet or illuminated person to whom the secret of the divine judgment is revealed in a vision. The author of such works is normally the prophet himself who describes the details of the divine judgment. The most important apocalyptic work of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation, is based on Old Testament apocalyptic literature, some features in the gospels, and the letters of the New Testament.22 With the notion of the great event of unveiling of Jesus’s ultimate coming—as depicted in the Book of Revelation—we are still quite far from the notion of revelation of later centuries. A  comprehensive understanding of revelation, which goes beyond the level of a prophetic role, is rooted not only in the Johannine writings, but also in Hellenistic philosophy with its view of the universe as a mechanism of imparting divine secrets.23 At this point let me emphasize the following methodological point. Just as Christianity was molded in the melting pot of Hellenism, so the notion of revelation was cast in the same pattern. Any historical analysis which explores the antecedents of the notion of revelation in Judaism, the gospels, or early Gnosticism without taking into consideration the wider role of the Hellenistic cultural matrix with its mythological, religious, and philosophical components will present an insufficient picture of the origin of the notion of revelation.24 The apocalyptic 21 For more details about the notions of the first Christians concerning their experience of Christ (i.e., revelations), see N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003). 22 See also Chapter 5, section 3. 23 See Cicero, On the Commonwealth. On the Laws, ed. James E.  G. Zetzel (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1999), where the author describes the universe as a providential mechanism of imparting divine secrets. See also Plato’s Republic where we find a description which highlights the relationship between naked eye observation of the starry heavens and the mental image of perfect heavenly circulations and order (especially 529c–d); or again see the Timaeus for similar details (47b–c). 24 Philo of Alexandria was the most important author in Antiquity who offered a Hellenistic interpretation of the Tanakh along the lines of an esoteric Platonic philosophy, a philosophy which greatly influenced the metaphysical speculations of the Christian Patristic period for hundreds of years.

20

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Radical Revelation

aspects of the books of the Tanakh bear the signs of the influence of Hellenism; so does the apocalyptic literature in the first century ad, from which Christianity received many ideas. St. Paul’s letters, based on an underlying doctrine of divine revelation, rely on expressions taken from the amalgamating cultures of Judaism and Hellenism, with a clear influence of the latter. The fourth Gospel, attributed to St. John, is again a rich resource of the New Testament notion of revelation, one which synthesizes Judaic and Greek influences under the auspices of an already strongly Hellenized Christianity. Hellenism is like the beam of light in which the notion of divine revelation, of Old Testament origins, takes shapes and leads to the doctrinal formulas of Christianity.25 When I  say Hellenism, I  mean above all φιλοσοφία (philosophy). We can describe Hellenistic culture in terms of the variety of mythological, religious, cultural, and political traditions which were cast into the form of Greek culture after the conquests of Alexander the Great. Together with the ever more integrated political structures which culminated in the Roman Empire, the culture of Hellenism became focused on its highest expression, philosophy. The influence of Platonism is perceivable in the most important intellectual achievements of the Middle and Late Hellenism, and Christianity did not only receive this influence, but was gradually formed as both a development but also a criticism of the central tenets of philosophy. This was in part a conscious work of the first generations of intellectually cultivated Christians. However, there was simply no alternative to the Hellenistic understanding of the world with φιλοσοφία in its center. Whatever was received into this world was transformed in accordance with its principles. This is not to say that Christianity was not critical of Greek culture and did not influence it accordingly, in due course even decisively. In the works of the Church Fathers—especially those of non-Greek origin—Christianity’s critical attitude is overtly evident. But even among the Fathers with Greek as their mother tongue, Christianity’s critical stance to philosophy is clearly articulated.26 This attitude, however, was formed by Hellenistic influences, so much so that the expression “true philosophy” seemed applicable to Christianity by many of the Greek and Latin Fathers.27 Only as a result of all these influences can we properly conceive the ever more unified and articulated idea of revelation. This process, however, for a long time 25 The related literature supporting this thesis is significant. Let me refer merely to two important sources: Endre von Ivanka, Plato Christianus: Übernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus durch die Väter (Einsiedeln:  Johannes-Verlag, 1990); and Jaroslav Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 26 With respect to a general evaluation of the dialogue between theology and philosophy, see Etienne Gilson, God and Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941), pp.  42–4. It is noteworthy that some of the fathers of non-Greek background, such as Tertullian, show a sharp criticism of Greek philosophy. Clement of Alexandria is the counterexample with his Alexandrian culture and sympathy for philosophy. 27 Among others, Justin and Augustine make use of this expression.

21

1. What Is Revelation?

21

lacked a clear unity; until the Enlightenment period “revelation” typically meant the fonts of revelation, that is to say, the Scriptures, the traditions, and the doctrines of the Church. Only after facing the challenge of deism did the unified notion of divine revelation move to the center and become a dominant topic for philosophers and theologians. To be more precise, the position of the Deist, when he declared that “[r]eason is natural revelation and revelation is natural reason,”28 can be well understood as essentially contributing to the emergence of the unified idea of divine revelation. Just by reducing revelation to reason they supplied the notion of revelation with a substantial, though initially only a negative, unity. Lessing’s idea of revelation as God’s millennia-long education of the human race into maturity achieves, however, more than just a negative conception; he understands this unified revelation as a process leading to fulfillment, to “the age of the New Eternal Gospel.”29 Here divine revelation, even if in a rationalistic rendering, receives a unified consideration and a theoretical unity in form and content.30 When contemporary authors emphasize the feature of process, evolution, or progress in the notion of revelation in the Tanakh and the New Testament, they rely to a significant extent on the notion of a progressive revelation introduced by earlier historical understandings, such as those of Joachim de Fiore, Jakob Böhme, Schelling, and Hegel.31 These authors understand revelation as a development emerging from the doctrines of Christianity, while these doctrines can be traced back to the changes of the notion of God’s presence in the world of the Tanakh. Latourelle speaks here of a “progression,”32 and other authors stress the

28 Cf. John Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding (London:  Penguin, 1997), p. 947: “Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal Father of light and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties: revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by God immediately; which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and proofs it gives that they come from God.” 29 G. E. Lessing, Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, in Lessings Werke in einem Band, ed. Gerhard Stenzel (Salzburg/Stuttgart: Verlag Das Bergland-Buch, 1950), pp. 10–31. 30 For an overview of the emergence of the notion of revelation, see Keith Ward, Religion and Revelation: A Theology of Revelation in the World’s Religions (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1994), Part IV. 31 Lessing refers to his forerunners in Die Erziehung calling these figures “enthusiasts” (see Lessing, Die Erziehung, p. 31). He goes beyond the criticism of Locke and others by pointing out the importance of the insights of these “enthusiasts” for future development. It seems that Lessing was the first to recognize the importance not only of the concept of the “transcendental unity of God,” but the concept of a transcendental unity of revelation as well. 32 Latourelle, Theology of Revelation, p. 39. The dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum § 8 emphasizes that “[f]or as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves

22

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notion of a “process of change.”33 Such an understanding appears to determine the foundations of Christian self-understanding as early as the development of Pauline theology. According to this doctrine, the central feature of the appearance of Christ consists in “the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret for long ages” (Rom. 16:25). However, this mystery was revealed by Jesus Christ at a certain point of time and thus the revelation of the mystery accomplishes a development in the historical sense. This development describes, however, the theological or ad intra side of revelation too, because Christ is not only the incarnate human being defined by earthly coordinates, but also the second person of the Trinity. The New Testament is understood here as the disclosure of the fundamental change (ἀποκάλυψις) in the history of God’s mystery “kept in silence” (μυστηρίον χρόνοις αἰωνίοις σεσιγημένον) previously. God had concealed his “mystery,” that is, his genuine intention, throughout the ages so that he could reveal it in Christ and, as a consequence, in the New Testament as a divine act and a text. It is in this vein that Jesus acknowledges Peter’s reference to him as the Christ in Mt. 16:17. The realization that Jesus is the Christ appears here as a piece of information that may not be naturally known; it must be “revealed” (ἀπεκάλυψέν) to Peter directly by the Father “who is in heaven.” The history of the notion of revelation can be outlined with a focus on the most important centers of its history. One can comfortably list nine periods of “epochal changes,” as Avery Dulles calls them, in the history of the idea of revelation.34 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

The Old Testament notion of revelation as the Word of God. The New Testament notion of revelation as the new covenant. The Patristic notion of revelation as illumination. The medieval Scholastic notion of revelation as divine doctrine. The notion of Protestant Reformation of revelation as God’s response to humanity’s sinful state. The Counter-Reformation notion of revelation as authoritative and propositional teaching. German evolutionary idealism of the nineteenth century. Liberal modernism’s notion of revelation as a subjective experience. The notion of existentialist philosophy of revelation as that which concerns man ultimately.

Dulles’s work, from which this list is taken, shows an earlier stage of his idea of “models of revelation” explained in his later books. However, this early historical analysis of the “changes” of revelation is helpful. It underpins the notion that the history of the notion of revelation is a history of continuous development with forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her” (DS 4210). 33 Oepke, in Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, p. 576. 34 Cf. Avery Dulles, Revelation Theology:  A  History (New  York:  Herder and Herder, 1969), pp. 171–200.

23

1. What Is Revelation?

23

centers of important changes in structure and emphasis. The list of the nine centers, however, does not seem to be wholly satisfactory for two reasons: first, some of the periods are more complex than Dulles suggests. Second, some “epochal changes” do not appear to be genuinely epochal if scrutinized in sufficient depth. As to the first problem, I  find it questionable to handle the Old Testament period monolithically, because important changes in the notion of revelation occurred already during this long period. There is a great theological difference between God’s appearing to Moses “seeking to kill him” in Exod. 4:24 and God’s appearing to Elijah as a “still small voice” in 1 Kgs 19:12. There is a further and even more important difference between the archaic theology before the Babylonian captivity and the more refined theology of revelation after the return from captivity with an emphasis on historical fulfillment. The Hellenistic influences on the notion of revelation, detectable in the wisdom literature, show a further development in this history, a development pointing to an encompassing notion of revelation.35 As to the question of “epochal changes,” the sixth cannot be properly termed a change. Rather, as a reaction to the Protestant reformation, Catholic theologians attempted to overview and systematize the meaning of revelation especially with respect to the Protestant claims concerning the sources of revelation, the authority representing revelation, and the emphasis on the individual Christian believer. Counter-Reformation theology did not offer a new understanding of revelation fundamentally different from the view of Scholastic authors. But they did systematically propose teachings on revelation in such a way that the Catholic tradition regarding questions of authority and ecclesial structure received a new emphasis. Consequently, the understanding of divine revelation, especially as propositional revelation received and proclaimed by the visible Church, emerged in a unified form. If there is something epochal in this reformulation, then it is merely the confirmation of the Scholastic tradition after centuries of complex theological developments. The notion of revelation as imparting natural truths belongs to the legacy of this tradition. The case is similar as to “liberal modernism’s notion of revelation as a subjective experience.” The alleged subjectivism of the Catholic modernists at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a belated reinterpretation of German Idealism and thus cannot be seen as a substantial contribution to, not to say an epochal change in, the history of the notion. The Scholastic conception of revelation was a ramification of the Patristic conception. The latter meant a significant change in comparison with the scattered understandings of revelation in the New Testament. The existentialist notion of revelation in the twentieth century was again a corollary of, and a partial reaction to, German idealist conceptions. With respect to the existentialist notions, I accept the qualification of an important change, but it must be seen that Kierkegaard and twentieth-century existentialist theology cannot be properly understood without the contributions of German idealism. Both

35 For this, see Latourelle, Theology of Revelation, p. 27.

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the Scholastic and the existentialist notions can be defined as belonging to periods derivative of important epochs, such as the Patristic era and German Idealism respectively. I offer a more economical list of the epochal changes of the notion of revelation. In a simplified view of the history of the notion, we can keep two important centers: the age of the Patristic literature and the age of German Idealism. In both cases, a good number of influences merged and led to the formation of new and significant understandings. In the first case, Patristic writers amalgamated not merely the conceptions of the Old Testament, but also Hellenistic notions, mainly in their Platonic and Gnostic versions. This process of amalgamation already began with the existing texts of the New Testament writings and reached its end more or less around the sixth century. During this period, the fundamental features of the notion of revelation became crystallized in scriptural and dogmatic forms. As a result, the notion of revelation overcame its unorganized, manifold meaning and became identical with the canonized Scripture, the body of doctrines, and the traditions, in which the liturgy came to possess a crucial role. It was due to the centuries of Patristic theology that the notion of revelation has taken the shape of a virtually unified conception.36 As an example it is worth considering briefly the notion of revelation in Irenaeus. For him, revelation is the act of making something visible and tangible, that is, the invisible Father’s act of making his love manifest especially in his Word. Irenaeus adds nevertheless that the manifestation of God’s love in a visible form did not begin and end with the incarnation: in the creation before the incarnation and in the Church after the incarnation the Father makes his love visible. Here we deal with a comprehensive and systematically developed understanding of revelation in which God, who is invisible in himself, makes himself visible both in nature and in history. As he writes, Thus, therefore, was God revealed; for God the Father is shown forth through all these [operations], the Spirit indeed working, and the Son ministering, while the Father was approving, and man’s salvation being accomplished.37

36 Lewis Ayres shows how the notion of Trinity took shape in Augustin with respect to Greek and Latin authors as his sources. While the notion of revelation remains undeveloped in Augustine, his understanding of the Trinity contributes to a more complex and unified understanding of revelation in subsequent authors. Cf. Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 320. 37 Adversus haereses, IV. 7, in: Irenaeus, The Writings, vol. 1, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1868), p. 444. See also Migne (ed.), Patrologia Graeca, Tomus 7, p. 1038. Juan Ochagavía gets the point in his work on Irenaeus (Visible Patris Filius: A Study on Irenaeus’ Teaching on Revelation and Tradition (Roma: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1964), p. 59 sq.) when he emphasizes the visibility of revelation in that work.

25

1. What Is Revelation?

25

Irenaeus often uses “ostentio” and “manifestatio” for revelation, and he means that God’s “showing,” his making something visible, is his revelation. The life of human beings is “the vision of God,” and if the visible manifestation of God gives life to the living things in nature, even more so does the Word of God give life to the faithful. The second important center of the history of the notion of revelation is German Idealism. I find it inaccurate to call this period “idealism,” not because some of its representatives disliked the expression, but because they used it in a sense different from our understanding of “idealism” today.38 “Idealism” was seen as the synthesizing and transcending of the opposing views of narrow traditionalism and revolutionary progressivism, skepticism and empiricism, externalist faith and extreme unbelief; or, in more developed systems, it was the name of the solution of the contradictions in Kant’s system, or the transcending and fulfilling of epistemic, ontological, and theological pairs of contraries, such as in the thought of Schelling and Hegel. We already find this kind of understanding, without the name of “idealism,” in the works of Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller.39 Vernunft, already before Kant, was not understood as fully identical either with reason (ratio) or with intellect, but rather with the capacity of recognizing the “transcendental unity” of God and his revelation, as Lessing terms it.40 I agree with John Niemeyer Findlay when he speaks of “German Theology” in this respect, a type of thinking which had its roots in medieval mysticism and led to the significant developments in twentiethcentury theology and philosophy. Meister Eckhart, Luther, and Paul Tillich, or again Franz von Baader and Anton Günther, are closer to one another in terms of the type of their thinking than are Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Russell with respect

38 “Idealism” is equivalent with “daydreaming” in current vocabularies. This is not the sense the philosophers of German Idealists had in their mind. Hans Urs von Balthasar offers a different approach: he terms more or less the same period as “apocalyptic” in his work Apokalypse der deutschen Seele (Frankfurt: Insel-Verlag, 1998). I shall return to von Balthasar’s understanding of this period below. His use of the term “apocalypse” to designate a complex cultural process is on the one hand very general and on the other hand points out some important features of this period. 39 See Goethe’s Faust, trans. Walter Kaufman (New York:  Anchor Books, 1963), part II, especially the philosophical scene. Schiller’s poems, especially Der Spaziergang (“The Walk”) are about a similar notion. I already cited Lessing’s Die Erziehung above. On the significance of Goethe’s Faust, see Chapter 6, section 6, c. 40 Lessing, Die Erziehung, pp. 13–14. It is important to see that Lessing and Locke are quite distant from one another, even though they seemingly say the same. As we saw, Locke identifies reason and revelation. Lessing declares: “Die Offenbarung hatte seine Vernunft geleitet, und nun erhellte die Vernunft auf einmal seine Offenbarung” (Revelation has guided its reason, and now, all at once, reason gave clearness to its revelation; my translation). But Vernunft is different from “reason”; for Lessing, revelation and Vernunft have a dialectical relationship; revelation is not simplified into moral truisms.

26

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to their own tradition. Thus I prefer speaking of German Theology to “German evolutionary idealism,” as Latourelle does.41 In spite of the apparently rationalistic implications of Kant’s work, post-Kantian German thought proved to be in many ways a philosophical theology sometimes verging on pantheism. Nevertheless, the thought of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel are just as un-pantheistic as the thought of Eckhart, Nicolas of Cusa, Lessing, or Franz von Baader. All these authors carefully emphasize the unalienable priorities of the proper absolute, God. What raises the suspicion of pantheism is their common effort to emphasize the importance of the intricate interaction between God and the world, that is, an understanding of God not merely as actus purus, absolutely continuous actuality, but rather as coincidentia oppositorum, the unity of the opposites and thus a complex movement or even a process in the absolute sense. Revelation is identical with the comprehensive process in which God and humanity, the divine and the human, become eschatologically unified. It was in this matrix of German Theology that the notion of divine revelation as God’s selfrevelation was formed and became formulated for the first time in terms of elaborate systems.42 The emerging new conceptions of revelation had been implicitly present in earlier developments with respect to both the Patristic era and German Theology. An archetype of the notion of revelation as embodied in a person was the conception of God’s mal’ak (‫ )מַלְאָך‬or angel in the Tanakh. The core message of St. John the Baptist and Christ himself was in fact the coming of malkut Yahweh (‫יְהוָה‬  ‫)מַ לְכוּת‬ the “kingdom” or rule of the Lord. The messenger of malkut Yahweh is the mal’ak, that is, the power of God:  God’s appearance in a personal form. God’s glory or kabowd (‫ )כָּבוֹד‬was an expression of his revelation from the earliest times, and his wisdom (chakmah, ‫)חָכְמָה‬, arising only in the wisdom literature peripheral to the canonical writings, contributed to the possibility of understanding his revelation

41 J. N. Findlay, Hegel: A Re-examination (London:  Allen and Unwin, 1958). Findlay uses the expression “German Theology” on the basis of the medieval theological tractate known as Theologia germanica or Teutsche Theologie. For instance, Isaak August Dorner writes: “In the ‘Teutsche Theologie’ . . . the Persons of the Trinity recede still further into the background; on the other hand, greater prominence is given to another distinction, to wit, between the Divine nature or essence, and the Divine operation. . . . The ‘Teutsche Theologie’ endeavors to bring God and man into greater nearness by questioning the propriety of applying the category of actuality to the immanent being of God, and by maintaining that the Divine attributes first attained to actuality in the world” (History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, vol. 2, trans. Rev. D. V. Simon (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1866), pp. 11–12). 42 Following Peter Koslowski’s distinction we may speak here of Christian Gnosis as opposed to Gnosticism. According to Koslowski, the former is a dogmatically correct speculation, a mystical philosophy of Christianity; the latter is a falling back into the old heresies of Gnosticism refused and refuted by the church fathers. See Koslowski, Philosophien der Offenbarung (Paderborn-Wien-München-Zürich: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2001).

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as the appearance of a human person representing—or even being identical with— God himself. The historical notion of revelation is already foreshadowed by the understanding of history as the history of liberation from captivity by the prophets of the Tanakh. A similar notion permeates the views of the authors of the New Testament writings when they emphasize the message of Christ pointing beyond the limits of his age. The Book of Revelation situates the person of Jesus in a universal perspective in which the particular events in a province of the Roman Empire gain an all-important dimension. The Patristic authors connected the historical notions of divine revelation with the universal notion of cosmic revelation as it had been formulated especially in the Platonic and Platonizing traditions. For the Fathers, however, one of the most important sources was the thought of Philo of Alexandria. Philo worked out the pattern by which the historical revelation of the Jews could be reconciled with the notion of a cosmic revelation in Platonism. The Patristic authors developed an historically oriented conception of divine revelation in their writings and especially in the doctrines of Christianity. The universal and historical conceptions of revelation as explained in the writings of Hegel, or the notion of a supernatural history prefigured by the changes of mythology as worked out by Schelling, were based on earlier notions of history, most eminently the Enlightenment’s idea of progress. This notion, however, goes back to the notion of the history of salvation which could not have been understood properly without the notion of historical progress becoming fulfilled in the person of Christ. The coming of Jesus had been prepared by a long historical process which poured into the event of the incarnation. Moreover, the mission of Jesus points to the second coming, that is, the eschatological event which terminates worldly history in ἀποκατάστασις (Acts 3:21). Fichte’s conception of the voice of human conscience, as the way God addresses a human person, is again not completely new, given the notion of divination or μαντεία especially in the Platonic writings.43 But his emphasis on the importance of the voice of conscience as the direct word of God, that is, God’s personal revelation given to a human person, is a novelty. It is an important innovation as well that Fichte connects the voice of conscience to the will, the faculty of choice, and thereby to human action, where God’s revelation becomes realized in human decisions. God’s revelation becomes realized in and by concrete human actions. The subsequent existentialist notion of revelation, as that which concerns us ultimately, is apparently implied in Fichte’s notion of revelation; even though Martin Heidegger’s conception of Dasein is a new development in understanding humanity’s place in the world as the expression of an absolute self-disclosure. Beyond the philosophy of Dasein, it is the notion of Ereignis or event which appears to rely on earlier notions of divine revelation. For Heidegger, Ereignis is the absolute event embodied in crucial historic and personal changes constitutive of history.

43 Cf. Plato’s Apology where Socrates mentions his divine and demonic sign (or sound), according to some texts, θεῖόν τι καὶ δαιμόνιον γίγνεται φωνή (31c–d).

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The two main centers of the development of the notion of revelation can be presented in a more analytical way. The Patristic center points to three historical directions:  backward to the influence of the Tanakh, to Hellenism and Platonism, and also to the Scholastic synthesis in the West. The center of German Theology, similarly, points back to Middle Age mysticism and the Protestant Reformation, to the stiffening of dogmatic positions during the period of the Counter-Reformation, and also to the new theology and philosophy of revelation of the twentieth century. Just as Hellenism is the most decisive factor behind the Patristic center of synthesis, it is especially the thought of Schelling and Hegel which is the most important factor behind the various developments of German Theology with respect to the notion of revelation. We cannot properly understand the development of this revelation in the early stages of its history without Platonism, and we cannot properly understand the developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries without the synthetic thought of Schelling and Hegel. The differences between Platonism and German Theology are significant, and yet they are comparable in their relative importance to subsequent developments. Thereby I do not deny that other factors had some influence in the history of the notion of revelation. I merely determine the most important stimuli while I  am aware of the various other factors affecting both centers of development. In the twentieth century, for instance, Catholic thought, which seemed to have been lost in a kind of voluntarism of earlier conceptions of revelation, suddenly emerged as offering groundbreaking contributions in the works of Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar. In Rahner, it is especially the notion of transcendental revelation which proved to be decisive, and in von Balthasar, the notion of aesthetic revelation or glory has contributed to a deeper understanding of revelation in universal terms. The historical factors shaping the notion of divine revelation as universal revelation underdetermine the notion itself. I do not propose a version of revelation as history if I  say that the notion shows a sort of evolution. Just as “history” is not identical with a chain of events or a plain chronology, but these events serve rather as paradigms pointing to the immanent significance of salvation history, so the development of the notion of revelation is not conceived properly by a list of particular historical changes. The two centers of the Patristic period and German Theology express a deeper importance than what an exact historical description could detect. They indicate the reality of revelation in such a way that what is historically expressed and serve as an object of scholarly analysis is in itself an occurrence of the notion itself, the reality of revelation as such. Divine revelation appears to be the togetherness of the immanent and the historical, that is, the interplay of factual fulfillment and universal openness. It is in the structure of this interplay that the radical character of revelation can be discovered, and an ever deeper and more essential unity emerges as soon as we let this interplay deploy what it conceals. The study of history has an importance more eminent than just the listing of historical facts; it always points to a unity in which the meaning of history is formed, that is, a unity already presupposed and constituted by our view of individual historical occurrences.

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5. The Cognitive Origins of Revelation It has been pointed out that divine revelation originates in a source other than the human mind; otherwise it is meaningless to speak of “revelation.” Revelation “comes to mind” and does not originate in it. Revelation is precisely that which is revealed to beings who are not the source of revelation. A revelation is necessarily a revelation of a revealer to a receiver of revelation. We find this understanding of revelation in the writings of a number of thinkers of various backgrounds, beginning with Thomas Aquinas throughout the French and English Deists to Schelling and Karl Barth. I  term this understanding of revelation non-conditionalism, because it strives to presuppose no specific conditions of revelation in the strict sense on the side of the receiver of revelation.44 A sharper formulation of the above point is the following. Revelation is what is in no way presupposed, assumed, prepared, or conditioned by the receiver of revelation. “In no way” means here that there is absolutely no a priori capacity of receiving revelation. Not only are the conceptual structures missing, but even the mere possibility of such structures, not even the existence of a receiver of revelation, is considered to be a presupposition of revelation on this view. The very existence of the receiver of revelation is the result of the act of revelation itself, and whatever belongs to this notion of revelation is achieved strictly speaking by the act of revelation. I term this point of view strong non-conditionalism. Strong non-conditionalism is contained in non-conditionalism as a further possibility. Some authors following the view of non-conditionalism are close to strong non-conditionalism in their conclusions. On the view of non-conditionalism, it is the revealer of revelation that produces or creates the receiver of revelation in a separate act prior to revelation strictly so-called, and it is the revealer of revelation that prepares the reception of revelation naturally, historically, and subjectively. In other words, a priori structures of revelation are prepared and maintained by the revealer of revelation proleptically, that is, in such a way that the receiver of revelation is ontologically or actually formed so as to receive revelation. Nonconditionalism entails the possibility of its own extreme form, its reductio ad absurdum, that is, strong non-conditionalism in which even the proleptic structures are considered to belong strictly to the act of revelation. This reduction, however, cannot do justice to the obvious ontological and cognitive difference between the revealer and the receiver of revelation. In traditional theology, the act of creation, historical preparation, and the “fullness of times” are conceived of as the working out of the distinction and unity between the revealer and the receiver of revelation. The conception of an economy of salvation is the medium in which the reciprocity of the revealer and the receiver is realized in a number of ways. Such a conception does not deny the ultimate origin of all

44 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, I.4. References to the Summa Contra Gentiles, to the Notre Dame edition in 5 vols, trans. Anton C. Pegis et al. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975).

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things in one source, but it attempts carefully to explain the difference and similarity between the revealer and the receiver of revelation. It is by difference that similarity can be sufficiently formed, and it is in similarity that difference can be adequately realized. In this reciprocal connection the dynamism of revelation is expressed in a more nuanced form. This form is able to satisfy both the nature of revelation as external to the receiver of revelation on the one hand, and the latter’s proleptic structures immanent in the receiver of revelation on the other. Weak conditionalism is the view that acknowledges both the nature of revelation as revelation and the existence of proleptic structures of revelation on the side of the receiver of revelation. There is a further point: it occurs precisely by the act of revelation as revelation that we come to recognize the existence of the proleptic structures of revelation in the receiver of revelation. Whenever we recognize natural or cognitive presuppositions, as we did at the beginning of the present chapter, or whenever we see proleptic structures, such as the mind’s capability of conceiving revelation either in its general source or in its mediated forms, we do all this in the perspective of the fundamental fact of revelation as revelation. This perspective may be latent, very often just tacitly conceived, but in either case it holds true that it is in view of the fact of revelation as revelation that we are warranted to speak of the conditions of revelation. These conditions are “weak,” because they do not refer merely to the difference between the revealer and the receiver, the supernatural and the natural, the noncreated and the created; their correlation is also emphasized. Such a relationship does not abolish the difference; it only points out that even the difference itself is conceived of in the perspective of similarity, and similarity is conceived of in the perspective of difference. It is not one of the poles that transcends the other—the subjective or the objective, the natural or the supernatural, the created or the noncreated—but it is their shared dynamism in which their similarity and dissimilarity come to the fore. In other words, it is the common dynamism of the revealer and the receiver of revelation in which revelation as revelation takes place. In this way, the receiver of revelation as dynamically and reciprocally connected to the revealer is acknowledged. At this point one may wonder whether we are justified at all in speaking of divine revelation in the strict sense. Is not “divine revelation” just an inherited expression of earlier ages without any meaningful content? I propose here an argument to the effect that the very notion of revelation as revelation (in the general sense of “divine revelation”) entails the reality of revelation. The argument is a version of the classical ontological argument that concludes to the real existence of God from the notion of God we actually possess. The ontological argument for the fact of revelation, as I call it, runs as follows. Axiom (A): The notion of revelation is a moment of the fact of revelation. Premise (P): We actually possess the notion of revelation. Conclusion (C) on ((A) and (P)): Therefore there is the fact of revelation. As to (A): I do not think the truth of (A) can be consistently denied. If there is revelation, then the notion of revelation is a moment of revelation. In an axiom, we

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do not need to use the form of a conditional sentence as the conditional form is not about a fact but rather about the logical structure of a fact. A logical analysis of the notion of revelation shows that revelation is such that it entails the possibility and actuality of its being a revelation. Above I already concluded that even if we can speak of conditions of revelation, these conditions are moments of revelation itself. The notion of revelation is not something independent of the fact of revelation, but rather an exemplification of the fact of revelation in a specific way. The notion of revelation may have a variety of contents but I am considering it here in general terms only. Generally speaking, the notion of revelation is of revelation, that is to say, it belongs to the fact of revelation in the form of a notion. We do not have any access to revelation, intellectual, emotional, or moral if not by virtue of the fact of revelation. As to (P): At least some human beings possess the notion of revelation in the sense I am using it. This is a modest formula, because otherwise it is fairly probable that a great number of human beings possess the notion of revelation. For the sake of the argument, however, it suffices to assume that at least some human beings have such a notion; we assume that these human beings are human beings in the standard sense, and they are not daydreamers or psychopaths. If there were only one single human being in the standard sense who possessed the notion of revelation, the ontological argument for the fact of revelation would still be valid. Since, however, many human beings for a long period of time have maintained the notion of revelation, we can securely conclude to the fact of revelation on that basis as well.45 Conclusion (C)  follows by accepting (A)  and (P). There is no other possible outcome of the argument if the axiom and the premise are admitted in the sense I have delineated them. By the same token I doubt that either (A) or (P) could be seriously damaged by any counterargument. There may be attempts to weaken their force, but they still seem able to survive even the strongest attack to the effect that revelation is an empty or meaningless word (as to A), or on the denial of (P). As to the former, all notions are of something, of a content, that is to say, of a fact as content; it is debatable what kind of reality this content possesses. The notion of a unicorn has the content of the unicorn and thus the “fact” of the unicorn as a fact of fantasy. If a notion is not self-refuting, that is logically consistent, its content has a certain level of factuality. The notion of revelation, however, does not claim to possess factuality in the way the notion of a piece of paper on my table does, not even in the way a logical calculus claims so in terms of mathematical entities. The notion of revelation belongs to the fact of revelation in an encompassing,

45 In a counterargument one may say that many human beings for a long period of time have maintained the notion that there were witches. On the above view it follows that witches in fact existed. This argument however is insufficient, because to be a witch is a strongly contingent fact in the world while revelation is the ultimate form of communication. What can be maintained with respect to the ultimate form cannot be maintained with respect to particular contents, because the latter is by definition something contingent.

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general, and universal sense. It is important to emphasize that the denial of (P) is self-refuting. The ontological connection between the notion of revelation and the fact of revelation may be weakened if one points out that the fact of revelation does not entail the notion of revelation. I do not think, however, that this juncture can be weakened. If there is a notion of unity, then there is a corresponding fact of unity; if there is a notion of identity, difference, similarity, and the like, there are corresponding facts. This is not to say that there is a physical entity that embodies identity, similarity, or difference; it is only to say that without the fundamental fact of identity, similarity, or difference, we cannot have the notion of identity, similarity, or difference. In the same way, without the fact of revelation, we cannot have the notion of revelation. We possess the notion of revelation not merely in the general sense, but in a number of other senses as well. We can speak of revelation, then, in a weak, a solid, a strong, and finally a robust sense. In the weak sense, revelation is all the kinds of communication which impart information to us which we did not possess before. An example would be a piece of the latest news. In the solid sense, revelation is a bestowal of information which we could never acquire by ourselves. An example here is a scientific theory of the kind we are not competent to develop by ourselves but we are able to understand once it is described. Revelation in the strong sense is a bestowal of information that remains inconceivable in its contents even if we receive it. Here we have the examples of the aesthetic kind, such as a masterpiece of music, say Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody. Such a piece of music is perceived, can be replayed and analyzed, but its musical beauty remains unique and ultimately incomprehensible in the aesthetic sense. We receive it, we are amazed by it, we admire it, and pay respect to it, but we cannot say we conceived it in its entirety. The nature of aesthetic experience is precisely such that it presupposes the infinite richness of the content of experience, a richness which discloses its nature not merely at a certain point of time but at a virtually infinite number of times. Revelation in the robust sense is the most general conception understood in an explicitly philosophical and theologically way. Here we do not have any particular constraint on the notion of revelation; we simply know that there is such an overall revelation without restrictions in form or content. Unrestricted revelation is the notion we are properly dealing with here. Revelation, on this view, is an ultimate notion the models of which cannot properly and fully display the entire content of the notion itself. Below I  shall have more to say about models of revelation; it suffices to say here only that historical forms of revelation necessarily belong into the open set of possible forms of revelation, and the number and variety of such possible forms cannot be calculated. Imagination is of great help here but any human imagination is finite although the number of possible forms and their combinations is infinite. It is in view of this latter notion of revelation that we can speak of a number of different conditions of revelation. These conditions are constitutive of, and not prescriptive for, revelation. They are constitutive as they shape the form and content of revelation in the perspective of the fact of revelation as revelation, and they are

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conditions of revelation in view of the received form and content of revelation. Such conditions are above all of two kinds, ontological and epistemic. Ontological conditions are conditions of being; epistemic conditions are conditions of knowledge. Both “being” and “knowledge” must be understood here as dynamic factors. “Being” is being not only as a fact, but also being in the making, as historicity, development, movement, process, or evolution of ontological factors. To being there belongs the possibility and actuality of being and their dynamic relationship. Similarly, being has two basic aspects, its production or creation on the one hand, and its consummation or perfection on the other. Knowledge is dynamic as well, since it is not about merely “knowledge” in the sense of verified true belief, but “knowledge” in the sense of the cognitive realm or notion of being. This realm, as I pointed out above, is dependent on being; still, it is a separate realm which possesses its own dynamic structures. Such a structure is the unified character of the cognitive realm which covers low-level cognitions, such as perceptions, feelings, desires, and high-level cognitions, such as volitions, decisions, and the processes of knowledge in the strict sense. Just as “being” has its basic aspects, knowledge has them as well. On the one hand, the very beginning of knowledge in the broad sense are the seminal forms of awareness noticeable to some extent already on the level of animals; and on the other hand, the fulfillment of knowledge is the ultimate act of insight in which the various layers of knowledge are united and point to the conscious performance of an action. In action, a new being is produced in which the two aspects of being and knowledge are joined. When we speak of the cognitive origin of our notion of divine revelation it is of an exceptional importance to see that the conditions of revelation determine both “being” and “knowledge.” Viewed in the perspective of the fact of revelation, these realms are revelations themselves and have their constitutive role in the dynamics of revelation as well. “Being” or “knowledge” are not presupposed by revelation but are recognized in its light. They are conceived in the perspective of revelation; “being” and “knowledge” are conditions precisely in this perspective. The cognitive origin of revelation lies in its conditioned nature in the realm of knowledge, and not only in knowledge in the strict sense, but in the broad sense as well, beginning from low-level awareness through the more explicit layers of knowledge up to the point of insight and action. In fact, there is no aspect of our cognitive life which does not figure as some sort of condition of revelation. Revelation is not merely communication of doctrines, feelings, events, or action, but the dynamic and reciprocal unity of all these factors. The cognitive factors are such that they play their own role in the dynamics of revelation and constitute revelation by virtue of their being conditions in this respect. In a narrower sense, we can speak of the cognitive origin of our notion of revelation in terms of our concepts of revelation. A  concept of revelation must have a recognizable form in our mind so that we can speak here of a conceptual origin of revelation. As I mentioned above, we possess an unqualified external source of knowledge which is the basic condition of a well-formed concept of revelation. Now I add that there is a side of this notion of an external source, that is, an intrinsic openness of human cognition which can be identified as the intrinsic condition

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of the concept of revelation. Openness in human cognition is already recognized as soon as we find ourselves in the cognitive process, and it is impossible that we do not find ourselves in the cognitive process as soon as we are aware of ourselves. In this awareness various aspects of human cognitions become recognizable, such as the sources of our cognitions of external and inner reality. There is, however, the specific nature of the cognitive realm by virtue of which particular sources of our cognitions are not isolated from one another, but they are merged in cognitive fusion, that is, in the emergence of a cognitive whole on the higher levels of human cognition. The most average example of cognitive fusion is an everyday perception of an object which we see, hear, touch, and smell simultaneously. We naturally merge the various kinds of perceptions into the unity of the perceived object as seen, heard, touched, and smelled. We spontaneously combine the isolated pieces of information so that they refer to the one and the same object. This remarkable capacity of producing a unity in cognition, referred to as aisthesis koine or “common sense” by Aristotle, is realized on a higher level in the case of conceptual knowledge.46 What is noteworthy here is not merely the fact of the fusion which produces a unity, but the capacity or openness of the particular forms of cognition to being integrated into more complete forms of knowledge. Our cognitive faculty is built in such a way that it is capable of organizing particular cognitive data into bigger wholes and even these wholes into overarching structures. Its openness presupposes the possibility of such structures, at least as structures of cognition. Revelation as the ultimate and utterly external source of information relates to such structures on the cognitive side. The overarching cognitive framework, as recognized by the mind, is the subjective side of the notion of the unqualified external source. The two moments constitute a general notion of a revelation which is not merely possible but actual to some extent in as far as we recognize it. This revelation may be termed “divine” inasmuch as we identify unqualified externality and its content with what has been conventionally called “God.” In the strict sense of “unqualified” we can do that, because God has traditionally been identified with absoluteness or infinity.47 Our notion of the “divine” is based on a cosmological theology in which the divine was represented as the non-earthly. In this inherited notion, the emphasis is clearly on the reference leading beyond the narrow limits of our everyday understanding of the world. The “divine” is non-earthly, that is, it lies beyond this world. If this general notion of the divine is integrated with the openness of our cognitive faculty, a primitive notion of revelation emerges, a notion still unspecified but

46 Αἴσθησις κοινή. See Aristotle, De Anima, III, 2: 425a. For other places in Aristotle where he uses this form of expression, see: De Anima, III.7: 431b; Metaphysics I,1: 981b. All references to Aristotle are to the Basic Works, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941). 47 That is the reason why we find the theological meaning of apeiron, infinity or nondefiniteness, already in Aristotle’s Physics (203b).

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one that we can develop into more substantial notions of revelation—in the light of revelation itself.

6. The Fact of Revelation The question of the relevance of divine revelation today cannot be detached from the general conviction, itself a result of the foregoing centuries, that divine revelation is an historical, in this sense contingent fact, or perhaps not a fact at all.48 Let me investigate briefly these two claims which seem to contradict one another: 1. Many of our contemporaries consider divine revelation a contingent fact. 2. Others consider revelation the work of imagination, that is, not a fact at all. These two claims seem to exclude one another; either we acknowledge that revelation is a contingent and historical fact, or else we deny it. In reality, however, the denial of the factual nature of revelation was made possible by a characteristic understanding of revelation as a contingent fact, that is to say a fact of no specific importance, a fact that may have never happened and thus it can be denied. This understanding shows the importance of the clarification of what the fact of revelation means. If the nature of revelation is misconceived, then the meaning of the nature of revelation changes; it gives way to the denial of the fact of revelation in the sense of the second claim. In more accurate terms we could say that, as soon as revelation is understood in terms of a poor fact, instead of a rich fact, its meaning becomes an easy prey for reductionist misinterpretations and disbelief. In order to clarify the distinction between a poor fact and a rich fact, let me call attention to the following. The factual nature of divine revelation possessed a characteristic meaning at the dawn of Christianity. The central event was the singular fact of the resurrection by which the person of Christ proved to be God’s revelation, that is, God himself revealed in a human form. The faithful accepted the fact of the resurrection as a real fact, a fact just like the fact of the healing of the sick or the eating of the bread at the Last Supper. However, in the real fact of the resurrection a universal importance was disclosed:  the meaning and fulfillment of human nature, history, and cosmos, a never before seen richness of truth and reality, that is, a “mystery which was kept secret for long ages” (Rom. 16:25). These features of the resurrection were identified in an event which was seen to be contingently historical. The universal nature of the resurrection came to be expressed in the contingent fact, and the contingent fact opened the perspective of an overall—historical as well as theological—importance. This perspective was 48 In the discussions of the early and late Enlightenment, we find the argument to the effect that the contingent facts of history cannot serve as sufficient basis for necessary truths; thus the fact of the history of the Scriptures cannot serve as sufficient basis for the necessary truths of theology and philosophy.

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again factual, thus sharing the nature of a contingent fact. Yet its factual nature was conceived as absolutely valid, that is, as a comprehensive reality in which participation was possible. An intrinsic connection was born between the contingent and the universal, a connection just as contingent as the original fact of the resurrection itself—as described by the gospels—and just as comprehensive as the reality of Christ—as described by some passages of the Pauline letters and subsequent theological interpretations. In the understanding of the first Christians, the fact of the resurrection was not merely an “experience,” a kind of mystical awareness, and certainly not an overstated interpretation of a tragic death. In the real and singular event of the resurrection an unmediated revelation of divine reality came to pass. The contingent fact of the resurrection uncovered an infinite richness, the fullness of divine reality. Christ being God, all real historical events of his human life belong to the economy of divine reality. In this way, the resurrection is an integral part of the same economy, that is, a disclosing of the glory of God in that singular historical event. In the New Testament many signs of this understanding can be found not only in some passages, but in the very structure of the writings, that is, in their inner arrangement and order, such as the order of the four gospels culminating in the interpretations of the Gospel of John.49 The New Testament writings were conceived precisely in the framework of the understanding of the encompassing richness of the resurrection. Even if later editors may have changed the texts to some extent, the underlying fact is clearly displayed: God’s reality breaks through the realm of everyday facts of our world in such a way that these facts become the moments of revelation. The fact of revelation was seen as a kind of window through which one can suddenly behold the beauty and splendor of God’s glory. This understanding of a fact can be termed “allegorical.” Since we often refer to allegory as a literary means, characterized by the freedom of the author’s fantasy, let me emphasize the following. “Allegory” in the Hellenistic age, when it was developed into its full-fledged form for the first time, was not about literary texts, not even of such texts as the works of Homer, the Bible, or the Platonic dialogues. Rather, allegory was the name of a general methodology closer to philosophy than to literature, and even closer to reality than to fantasy.50 In contradistinction to simple metaphor, allegory was considered intellectual or philosophical. With 49 We may also mention the central position of the “Fifth Gospel,” the Acts, or the Letter of Jude (recalling the name of the traitor in a positive context), or again the final piece of the Book of Revelation. 50 It seems that the notion of giving systematic “significance” to a “whole” text (e.g., Homer’s Iliad or Plato’s Republic) emerges seriously in polytheist interpretation only in Neoplatonic allegory from the third to the fifth centuries ce. When it does, the “unity” of the text reflects a Neoplatonic ideology of “organic” order, according to which even the most partial phenomenon of a well-formed composition (and of the cosmos as a whole) is a “symbol” (symbolon) of the One from which all phenomena “proceed.” See Jon Whitman, “Present Perspectives: Antiquity to the Late Middle Ages,” in Jon Whitman (ed.), Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 33–72

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an expression of Plato, this kind of allegory can be termed paradigmatic (from παράδειγμα, model, example), a concrete occurrence understood as an indication of a deeper reality from which the occurrence ultimately arises. Paradigmatic allegory was not seen as the result of an arbitrary “allegorizing,” but rather as the way to the understanding of history and the divine in their underlying, dynamic, and reciprocal unity. Through the occurrences of paradigmatic allegory, one could have a perspectival view of the reality in which the concrete events originate.51 The classical examples of paradigmatic allegory are Plato’s texts, such as the Republic. The Republic is narrated in the first-person singular as an exact recollection of a long conversation that took place, according to the text, in reality at a certain place and time. Yet the text offers a paradigmatic structure embedded in the real situation of the conversation. The dialogue seems to be about founding the just city. Keep reading the text and gradually it comes to the fore that this “city” has to be built in ourselves as the realization of a new kind of humanity, a new history, ultimately a restructured universe. The Republic is “paradigmatic,” that is, its general meaning is expressed in the form of a detailed summary of an old discourse. The real occurrence of the dialogue, however, is only the starting point of the exposition of the new order of the universe. In paradigmatic allegory, the “fact” opens a perspective which leads to an encompassing vision of reality.52 In the world of the New Testament, the appearance of Jesus as the Messiah was a paradigmatic event. The paradigmatic character of the gospels is certainly different from the recollection of a conversation such as we find in the Republic. The description of the life of Jesus offers a more robust expression of reality than the

(36). See also J. B. Kennedy, The Musical Structure of Plato’s Dialogues (Durham: Acumen Press, 2011), chapter 1. 51 I keep the expressions “paradigm” and “paradigmatic” to describe this kind of intellectual (universal and philosophical) allegory. E. E. Pender offers a thoroughgoing analysis of the role of metaphor in Plato and concludes that the best expression that can be used in this respect is “model.” Pender writes: “Plato’s discussion of models and images reveals that he had grasped the essential point that new understanding can be achieved through viewing a less familiar concept through the ‘lens’ of a more familiar concept” (“Plato on Metaphors and Models,” in G. R. Boys-Stones (ed.), Metaphor, Allegory, and the Classical Tradition: Ancient Thought and Modern Revisions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 55–81 (74)). 52 Even if the Greeks lacked the linear notion of history in the explicit sense we find it in the Bible, they still had the notion of history as the universe’s becoming united with God or its becoming distant from him (cf. Plato, Statesman 273d–e). The philosopher rearranges the universe so that it may become unified with God again. See also Philostratus on Apollonius: “he esteemed himself more highly than the sages of India did themselves, though he extolled the latter whenever he opened his mouth; and . . . he would not allow any sort of influence either to the sun, or to the sky, or to the earth, but pretended to move and juggle and rearrange these forces for whatever end he chose” (The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1921)], vol. II, p. 23).

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Platonic dialogues. The gospels consider all facts of Jesus’s life paradigmatic, that is, events opening a perspective in which the life of the divine is disclosed. Thus, the fact of the resurrection is seen in this real context as well. Yet this fact points to an encompassing perspective of decisive historical and theological significance. The appearances of the risen Lord in the form of a gardener, a teacher, or a fisherman are similarly paradigmatic: in contingent empirical events the Ruler of the World appears. As compared to allegorical exegesis, the paradigmatic perspective is construed so that it is firmly rooted in empirical facts and discloses a universal realm. Thus, paradigmatic allegory emphasizes both factuality and universality, that is, the richness of a fact and its connection to the perennial reality of the divine. This kind of paradigmatic allegory has the context of Hellenistic allegory, typology, and symbolism; it can be seen as a reform especially of Platonic paradigmatic allegory on the basis of the witness-based reference to solid factuality.53 With the gradual emergence of the more realistic and less allegorical awareness of the Church, the meaning of a fact changed. At first, it came to refer to a fact defined in the context of the legacy of the Church; the fact became articulated in the doctrines and the traditions. Paradigmatic allegory became substituted by authoritative teaching, which axiomatically presupposed and doctrinally defined the universal importance of certain real-world occurrences, such as the stories in the Scriptures. With the advent of an even more realistic notion of history during the Middle Ages, the interpretations of the Church gradually dissolved and gave way to the emergence of the notion of a “historical” fact in the sense of a poor fact. In the real historical perspective, the original fact of revelation came to be seen in the same way as many other facts of historical research; it lost its factual uniqueness, its exceptional character, its window-like nature through which we can marvel at the beauty of the divine. The impoverished fact turned out to be a fact of the past and as such it was considered as the axiom of the building of theology as a science. All this happened in spite of the fact that Christian liturgies contain even today the paradigmatic understanding of reality in their structure and details. The distinction between poor facts and rich facts can be better defined now. I call a poor fact the content of a description which conceives of the fact in terms of its isolated, narrowly real singularity while it excludes the fact’s various relations to other facts, to sets of facts, to the dynamism of these sets, and thus to the universal horizon without which the proper perception and understanding of a singular fact becomes impossible. Even taken in itself, a fact has its own history. In more general terms, a fact belongs to sets of facts and these sets constitute a wider context under a universal horizon; most importantly, the perceiving and understanding subject is part of this horizon. A  rich fact, in contradistinction to the poor fact, is the fact situated in the constellation of these relations in such a way that both the individual reality of the fact is preserved and its relationship to the

53 Cf. Jon Whitman, “General Introduction: A Retrospective Forward: Interpretation, Allegory, and Historical Change,” in Jon Whitman (ed.), Interpretation and Allegory. Antiquity to the Modern Period (Leiden: Brill, 2000), pp. 3–31.

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encompassing process is highlighted. A human person can be understood in her narrowly defined material singularity, but then we do not understand her properly as a human person. Only when we consider her in her personal core embedded in family, society, culture, and language, only when we understand her motives, purposes, mentality, and mode of thinking, are we able to understand properly her unique personhood. This kind of approach can be applied on various levels to all the facts of our reality. A rich fact, in this view, is not a legendary, mythological, or simply allegorical inflation of a poor fact. On the contrary, a rich fact expresses the more appropriate understanding of the poor fact in the unity of its encompassing situation and individual reality. However, a poor fact is just a truncated version of a rich fact; and while in certain cases it is important to have a clear conception of the fact in its simple, isolated character, a philosophical understanding must see the importance of envisioning the richness of the facts in our world.54 I cannot emphasize strongly enough the tremendous difference between these two conceptions of a fact. For the early Christians, the fact of revelation was a rich fact: an overwhelming manifestation of ultimate reality in which the factual nature of the life of Christ was experienced always in the empirical context of this reality. With the emerging historical existence of the Church, definitions, doctrines, and rituals came to mediate the peculiar nature of the original fact. In subsequent historical research, the nature of the fact of revelation dissolved in the real historical process taken in itself. Inasmuch as the fact of revelation was seen paradigmatically already in its original context, the possibility of assessing this fact as a poor fact becomes problematic. That is to say, the conception of revelation as a contingent fact without any wider significance is unhistorical: The texts that mediated the fact of revelation certainly considered this occurrence a rich fact. I do not say that the first Christians “believed” something which may not have been a fact; neither do I say that they believed in a “mythology” which appears to be empty in our contemporary perspective. I merely say that what the early Christians considered a fact was more complex than what historical research considers a fact today. The early Christians had a paradigmatic understanding of the fact, which is difficult to evaluate properly without seeing the universal methodological importance of allegory for the age in which they lived. If the proper understanding of a fact in accordance with the experience of the early Christians was a naïveté, then the claim of the exclusive legitimacy of the notion of a fact given in historical research would be similarly naïve because of its blindness to the historical and conceptual surroundings of the early Christian

54 The above argument can be explained on the basis of human language. Words possess meaning only in contexts, and without the linguistic horizon as a whole, the meaning of the words disappears. It is futile to argue that individual words have a meaning deprived of the context of language, because meaning itself presupposes and realizes a linguistic context. Similarly, poor facts are like words considered isolated from the linguistic context; and rich facts are like words put into the context of sentences under the linguistic horizon as a whole—including the linguistic subjects and their communities.

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understanding. Right now it suffices to point out the important difference between the poor fact and the rich fact. On the basis of this difference we can understand that in an age which has become shaped by a realistic historical awareness, the “fact” of revelation in the original sense may appear to be doubtful. The possibility of doubting the fact of revelation arises with the advent of the new understanding of a fact as a poor fact; although this understanding was in a way present among the early Christians as well in the form of a new kind of realism.55 It seems, for instance, that the stories of Jesus’s resurrection were composed with respect to opinions which denied the fact of resurrection and thus also denied the possibility of a paradigmatic understanding. The allusion to the alleged stealing of Jesus’s body by the disciples reveals the possibility of the denial of a fact, paradigmatic for the Christians. In this and similar references, two methodologies clash: the paradigmatic, in which reality is a living organism where every occurrence has a wider, in the last analysis comprehensive significance, and a non-paradigmatic or narrowly realistic one, which comes to deny the paradigmatic nature of a fact. Early Christianity was a reformulation and encompassing application of the allegorical understanding of premodern humanity; it was a rediscovery of the fundamental fact that, in the events of the universe, a reality is disclosed in its ultimate form and content. The loss of this understanding and the emergence of a narrowly realistic notion of the resurrection have led to doubts concerning not only the historical fact itself, but most importantly the paradigmatic character of such a fact. The development, in which the rich fact of revelation is impoverished to the point of a loss of credibility, is often determined as the process of secularization. The original meaning of “secularize” was the legal process of allowing a cleric to leave the Church hierarchy and enter the life of the world. “Laicization,” however, referred to the process of alienating pieces of property of the Church by the state, such as buildings, lands, or valuables. The general notion of secularization signifies today the more encompassing process of the gradual dissolution of the Church’s traditional structures in societies, where the contents of these structures simultaneously lose their plausibility. This process has its roots in the history of Christianity, but it was especially the emergence of the Copernican cosmology which hit the heart of the ancient view of the cosmos. The fall of traditional cosmology was followed by the undoing of the grip of theology on philosophy and the sciences, of the Church’s domination of political and cultural life. The decline of Christianity, which has not yet reached its end, has run parallel with the decline

55 It must be emphasized however that this tension between the allegorical understanding and poor factuality is intentional in the New Testament. If one reads The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, one can see how far a sophisticated editor of earlier, more primitive texts can go: Philostratus restyled the stories so much that the end result—a polished narrative with a weak connection to the world of actual facts—loses its credibility. But the gospels, even if edited in several ways, were kept in their original naivety; it was intentional on the part of the editors that they left the original texts of the gospels in the form we know today.

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of the faith in the fact of divine revelation, which directly raises the problem of the status of this notion in our world of today.56 I emphasize that the contemporary view of revelation is often far removed from the original Christian understanding. Even among believers in the historical basis of Christianity, the facts of revelation are frequently seen in terms of a poor fact. In this way, the genuine foundations of faith are misconceived and the relevant arguments are misconstrued. The difference between the paradigmatic understanding and the secular view can be illustrated by the comparison of an original Greek orthodox icon of Christ—say the Pantocrator type—and plastic portraits of the Savior sold at weekend markets in Southern Italy. The difference in artistic and spiritual quality reflects a difference in category. For the painter of the icon, Christ as Savior is of an overwhelming importance: it is the painter’s whole life, his highest aim, the objective and subjective fulfillment of cosmos and history, indeed being Itself.57 For the makers of the popular portrait, the picture of Christ is a piece of artifact produced for commercial purposes in a virtually unlimited number of copies. By the same token, it often seems that the notion of divine revelation is not considered today in the way it was conceived earlier; and the difference obtains not merely between the qualities of understanding, but between the notions of revelation itself. In contradistinction to the differences between an original icon and a popular portrait, the difference between the fact of revelation as understood earlier and the same fact as understood today is more significant. While there was a firm certainty of the unique fact of divine revelation earlier—even though this understanding was in many ways of an archaic character—today there is a generally perceptible uncertainty of the reality and nature of the fact of revelation. We may understand the process of secularization as the emergence of this uncertainty concerning the fact of divine revelation. The efforts of researchers from the beginning of modernity—more or less from the collapse of traditional cosmology—to reaffirm the fact of revelation suffered from two important weaknesses. The first weakness was a certain blindness as to the difference between the meanings of a fact in the earlier ages on one hand and in the age of modernity on the other. The other weakness was the lack of perception of the changes in the very meaning of divine revelation. The proper analyses of these changes— most importantly the clear emergence of the notion of self-revelation—could have shown the way to the appropriate reassessment of the notion of revelation. The standpoints emphasizing some form of the traditional notion of revelation, in the context of a poor fact, came to the fore and dominated the scene of discussion until and beyond the nineteenth century. By overemphasizing a narrow interpretation

56 See Balázs M. Mezei, “Demythologizing Christian Philosophy: An Outline,” Logos i ethos 34 (2013), 109–46. 57 On the icons of this type we see the Greek letters ὁ ὤν referring to Christ’s identity with the Lord who says of himself in Exod. 3:14: “I am who I am” (‫שר ֶאֽהְיֶה‬ ֶׁ ַ‫) ֶאֽהְיֶה ְא‬, or according to the Septuagint ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν, “I am Being.”

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of ancient views, the nineteenth-century response to the emerging secular age remained without the real chance of a success. In its more explicit form, secularization is identical with the spread of unbelief. Atheism rejected the idea of divine revelation and associated itself with forms of naturalism. While naturalism is not the only form of atheism—among atheists we find pantheists and spiritualists as well—naturalistic atheism is the most influential form of secularization today. I emphasize however that the real force of secularization was not rooted in any ideological force, political, philosophical, or other; secularization has been a negative conception, defined with respect to the Christian framework out of which it emerged. With its particular ramifications into atheism, spiritualism, pantheism, and messianic political movements, secularization has radically changed the framework in which the notion of divine revelation is understood today. Beyond the change of the meaning of a fact, modern and contemporary humanity has lost sight of an afterlife, emphasized greatly in traditional Christian doctrines. Just as the saving fact of revelation has lost its plausibility for many, the belief in a life beyond direct material reality, as we know it in our everyday experience, has also evaporated. With the loss of the belief in an afterlife, the meaning of divine revelation has changed as well, because in the new understanding there appears no place left for a divine being to reveal eternal truths. Secularization, the spread of unbelief, the loss of a supernatural reality, the change of the meaning of a fact, and last but not least the emergence of a naturalistic and scientific worldview have all contributed to the radical changes in which the conception of divine revelation is to be interpreted today. The main reason of the uncertainties concerning divine revelation is, in my view, the lack of a unified rethinking of all the relevant aspects of the changes I mentioned above together with their consequences for the notion of revelation. Popular attacks on religion and revelation do not usually take into consideration the efforts, often of exceptional theological and philosophical profundity, which have initiated such a general reconsideration. In the age of an intensifying secularization, such philosophical and theological reconsideration is unavoidable. Only by means of this rethinking can we reestablish the plausibility of the notion of divine revelation. It is, however, not so much the changes of a cosmology which are centrally relevant here; these changes, the emergence of a scientific picture of the world and the advent of a scientific civilization, give merely the framework of the task of rethinking. The task is to consider in depth the changes in the notion and the concept of revelation itself. The modifications in the meaning of the “fact” of revelation reflect modifications in the notion of revelation. The genuine importance of secularization seems to be the possibility of a radical rethinking of our earlier notion of divine revelation.

7. Theories of Revelation The problem of divine revelation has been variously reflected in Western history of thought. I  distinguish between two fundamental modes of such reflections,

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the theological and the philosophical. The distinction is not beyond challenge, for philosophy from its very beginnings—from Plato and Aristotle—has applied theological motives, so much so that Aristotle termed “first philosophy” theological.58 Even if these expressions—“first philosophy,” “philosophy,” or “theology”—possessed somewhat different meanings for the pre-Christian Greek authors, Hellenistic Judaism and Christianity (the latter in many ways through the former) inherited the legacy of philosophy as leading to theology as a sacred doctrine. Christian theology, however, used philosophical terminology already in its first attempts to formulate its central message in the New Testament writings, such as the Gospel of John. Nevertheless, especially from the Scholastic period, theology was defined in a sharp distinction from philosophy, a distinction which has become instrumental in the emerging classification of the sciences. Even today, theology is considered as a categorically distinct area of scholarship. In the light of such developments, it is legitimate to speak of two, albeit interrelated, ways of reflection on divine revelation.59 Theology did not only use the fundamental doctrines of the Church axiomatically; the formulation of doctrines was a theological work during the Patristic era. Theology, in this sense, contributed to the formulations of dogmas. Patristic theology, nevertheless, often fought its battles on philosophical grounds. The precise formula of the Christological and Trinitarian dogmas did not presuppose the relevant dogmas as axioms in an explicit form, because the debates concerned precisely the appropriate content of such dogmas. This work was theological, since it offered arguments from the Scriptures and the tradition. Yet the arguments were philosophical in nature as well inasmuch as the notions had to be defined and defended with arguments containing a strong rational element. The question concerning the homoousios, the essential identity of the Word of God with God himself, was partially philosophical due to its terminology and argumentation. The terminology applied some expressions of Greek philosophical language (and also a few expressions of Gnostic authors, such as the term homoousios), while it further developed and determined these meanings in the theological context. One of the most important elements of the arguments for theological propositions is

58 Cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics 1026a and 1064b. In McKeon’s translation, p.  779 and p. 861. 59 John Caputo emphasizes the “and” that is the necessary conjunction between “theology and philosophy” (Theology and Philosophy (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2006)). Karen Kilby points out the important philosophical background of Karl Rahner’s theology (Karl Rahner, Theology and Philosophy (London:  Routledge, 2006)). Michael Rea attempts to bridge the gap between analytical philosophy and theological thought in his introduction to Oliver D. Crisp and Michael Rea (eds), Analytic Theology: New Essays in the Philosophy of Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 1–28. A similar attempt is offered by John Haldane’s “analytical Thomism” in his Faithful Reason (London: Routledge, 2004). My approach will be clear in the above pages, especially in the next section on “A Radical Philosophical Theology.”

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the abundant use of natural and logical analogies and linguistic clarifications. The reference to the Bible, the tradition and declarations of the ecumenical councils were often enlightened, illustrated, and argued for on the basis of natural structures of human thinking.60 That is a clear sign of what others defined as the classical heritage of Greek philosophy in the Patristic era.61 Logical reasoning, that is, the use of various rational forms of building arguments, is pervasively present in most of the important authors of the period. At the same time, the arguments used strictly theological elements, such as the doctrine of earlier writers and the authority of traditional interpretations. Once the dogma was defined, theological reasoning was able to use it as an axiom during the ensuing debates. We can thus characterize theology as operating in a pregiven framework of doctrinal structures and contents, a framework in which theological and philosophical reflections form an interactive relationship. Unlike science or philosophy, theology proper is by definition conservative, as it cannot disregard its own doctrinal framework. Theology may become critical when it reflects on certain features of this framework, or may become more conservative in emphasizing a characteristic tradition in this framework as the only valid tradition. In both cases, it is the attending of the historically determined framework by which theology functions. This is valid not merely on the level of language or terminology, but on the level of forms of thinking. Theology does not aspire to find the truth in an original sense but rather to understand and interpret it in its own pregiven context. In this sense, theology properly speaking is not about the fact of revelation but rather, as mentioned, about the axiom of revelation. In this way, nevertheless, the theological reference to the “fact” as its own basis is built upon the authority of the witnesses of the fact of revelation and not directly on the fact itself. The other kind of reflection on the notion of divine revelation is philosophical. As mentioned, even theology philosophized throughout the centuries for obvious historical, terminological, and logical reasons. In the historical sense, philosophy displayed an attitude characteristically different from theology. If theology does not aspire to find the truth as it is, philosophy has always attempted to do it. In some cases, “finding” the truth may have been understood as producing or inventing the truth in the sense that the work of the philosopher to find the truth could be interpreted as contributing to the birth of the truth in a given context. It seems that Plato applied a formula close to this understanding. The demiurge follows the idea of the good by shaping reality, yet this shaping

60 See, for instance, Athanasius’s arguments against the Arians, in The Orations of St Athanasius Against the Arians:  According to the Benedictine Text, ed. William Bright (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 61 “The figure of the philosopher now becomes the figure of Christ himself ” (Ratzinger, “Faith, Philosophy and Theology,” p. 351). See also Alister McGrath, Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), p. 23.

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is the work of production, that is, the work of producing the truth in its concrete occurrences.62 The image of the philosopher-demiurge can be considered characteristic in various forms, such as in ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics throughout the centuries. Various have been the forms as well in which the “changeless” appeared in philosophical approaches. In Patristics and the early medieval period, philosophy played the role of the servant of theology, that is, ancilla theologiae. In the shadow of theology, philosophy was used to clarify logical structures and terminologies and to introduce the individual sciences, and yet its overall role was seen as secondary. However, the demiurgic nature of philosophy never died out, and theology had an important role to play in this situation. By emphasizing the power of the supernatural, and especially the fact of creation, created nature gained an independence it had not enjoyed in a quasi-pantheistic conception of the universe.63 Similarly, with the gradual emergence of the concrete notion of human personhood together with the grasp of the active intellect as belonging intrinsically to human nature, the creative self-identity of human persons came to the fore and offered the possibility of an ever more consistent use of created sources. Philosophy already produced important contributions before the time of Thomas Aquinas; but the rapid development of philosophical reasoning was equally due to the more concrete understanding of human reason in a theological framework and the shaping of human personhood along the same lines.64 Philosophy appeared as a rebellious discipline by the dawn of modernity. It developed a potency to override theology. I find three major causes of this development. The first cause is the ancient notion of philosophy to which a certain understanding of revolution was associated. The philosopher, being called to become a demiurge, was seen to be able to reorganize the cosmos in a new way, as certain passages in the Platonic dialogues show.65 The philosopher was thus a revolutionary figure, not only by his or her radical nonconformism, but by his cosmological—in late Platonism straightforwardly magical—aspirations as well.

62 The original meaning of the “demiurge” is “artisan.” According to Plato: “So whenever the craftsman looks at what is always changeless and, using a thing of that kind as his model, reproduces its form and character, then, of necessity, all that he so completes is beautiful. But were he to look at a thing that has come to be and use as his model something that has been begotten, his work will lack beauty” (Timaeus 28b). 63 Cf. Stanley Jaki, Is There a Universe? (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1993). 64 For more detail, see Chapter 3, 7, in this volume, on radical personhood. 65 The demiurge is an obscure figure in Plato’s dialogues; however, if we observe Socrates’s behavior in the Republic, where he is recreating a universal society just in the way the demiurge is supposed to do, we can understand the close relationship between the enlightened philosopher and the demiurge. See also what Philostratus says about Apollonius, attributing to him a demiurgic power (as quoted above in footnote 53 from Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, vol. II, p. 23).

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The second cause was the separation of theology from philosophy after the emergence of Christianity. Christianity already presented itself in the Fathers’ writings as the “true philosophy,” as a philosophy beyond the accepted schools of ancient thinking, a philosophy therefore which the Fathers considered the arbiter of every earlier worldview.66 This “true philosophy,” however, was in fact religion; it developed a body of core teachings, a sacramental life and liturgy, a style of art, music, and architecture, a hierarchy of clerics, forms of monastic life, a complete interpretation of past, present, and future. Philosophy in the old sense—even if it had similar aspirations as religio had—was forced to the periphery in the system of the new religio politica that enjoyed the support of the Roman emperors and most members of the leading elite of Rome and Constantinople. With this development, however, the rebellious potential of philosophy was marginalized. In an historical perspective, it is hardly surprising that marginalized philosophy, with a set of aspirations misleadingly similar to those of religio, may return to the scene and change the status quo when circumstances become favorable. This latter development happened in the rise of modern philosophy. The third cause of the revolutionary reemergence of philosophy was precisely the closing of the theological mind of the Middle Ages and the opening of a new kind of thinking with the Renaissance. The Renaissance became acquainted with the original Greek texts of Plato and many other ancient authors, the study and translations of which contributed to the revitalizing of philosophical thinking. In its endeavor, philosophy received support from the rapidly developing sciences and the growing analytical interest in the world of nature. For instance, in Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly (first published in 1511) philosophy is considered to be identical with the scrutiny of nature. Independent philosophy, especially beginning with the work of Descartes, carefully considered theological questions, always emphasizing the still respected authority of theology. During the period of rationalism, philosophical endeavors received support from mathematics and the sciences and developed the idea of a mathesis universalis, the mathematical image of the universe. At the same time, theological questions also came within the scope of philosophy, such as the problem of divine revelation. The new role of philosophy was grounded in its formal distinction from theology. Philosophers emphasized this distinction especially when it turned out to be important to defend themselves against the charges of heresy. While theology had to keep itself to its traditional conceptual and terminological framework, philosophy had a fresh eye in the new situation. Philosophical theories of divine revelation, while not denying the authority of the Church and its theologies, could formulate critical questions and ponder on possible answers. Their freedom was the guarantee of a theory-making which led to new theological developments.

66 One consequence was that the Emperor Justinian enforced the closure of the Platonic Academy in 529. Philosophers left the Roman Empire and found their new home in the Sassanid Empire. Their followers contributed to the cultural flourishing of the Persians under Muslim rule.

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Based on the foregoing reflections I consider a theory of divine revelation theological if any of the following holds for it: 1. The theory presupposes the validity of theology as a sacred doctrine in such a way that it does not formulate questions about the meaning of its contents. 2. If the theory raises the question of the meaning of the sacred doctrine, it is still theological inasmuch as its conceptual and terminological framework is that of theology as a sacred doctrine. 3. If it alters the conceptual and terminological framework, the theory is still theological until these changes remain relatively insignificant. 4. Even if there are strong conceptual and terminological changes, the theory counts to be theological in the vague sense if it attempts to find a novel and enriched form of the understanding of the traditions of Christianity. As we see, there is a gradual weakening of the sense of a theological theory of divine revelation as we get closer to (4). (4) and (1) cannot be simultaneously characteristic of one and the same theory, since a theory in the sense of (4) raises the question of the meaning of the accepted doctrines from a nontheological perspective. A  theory in the sense of (1), however, merely repeats or weakly interprets the accepted contents of dogmatic theology. Theological theories of divine revelation can be generally characterized by their close attention to the traditional theological framework and its axiom; even radical theories of revelation remain theological inasmuch as they accept the same framework as approximately valid for their considerations. A philosophical theory of divine revelation—that is to say, a philosophy of revelation67—may employ the conceptual and terminological framework of theology, but it is not bound to that framework axiomatically and does not need to attend it closely. Philosophy’s proper starting point is not the axiom on which theology is ultimately based—the axiom of revelation—but rather the fact itself in the context of its conditions and perspectives. That is to say, philosophy is derived from experience but it also applies particular axioms pertaining to logic and epistemology. A philosophical theory is logical and is construed in such a way that the fundamental intentional relation between the subject and the object, that is, the receiver of revelation and revelation itself is presupposed in a philosophical way. The philosophical way always entails that axioms are defined and reformulated on the basis of available experience. As pointed out above, conditions are conceived in view of the fact, but there is a distinction between focusing on the fact itself on one hand, or on the context in which the fact exists on the other. Theology considers the fact as a fait accompli; philosophy considers it as a rich fact, that is, as a fait inaccompli. The closed

67 I use the expressions “philosophy of divine revelation,” “philosophy of revelation,” “philosophical theory of divine revelation,” and “philosophical theory of revelation” as exact synonyms.

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fact has a certain poverty and rigidity in the form of the axiom; the open fact has richness, liveliness, and dynamism. Philosophy considers the fact of revelation in its factual nature but always embedded in the context of its conditions and consequences: in the network of a dynamism which makes the fact alive and powerful in philosophical experience. Indeed, philosophical experience is never limited to conditions or perspectives, presuppositions or factualities. The philosophical experience is the experience of the openness of individual moments in themselves and in their relation to one another in the overall context in which they figure, and it is the experience of the dynamic openness of the context itself in which these moments are positioned. It is the openness of philosophy to the experience of openness which makes it apt to conceive the fact of revelation in a larger context than what is given in theology properly so-called. The richness of the fact in a philosophical sense has two important aspects. First, it contains the realm of the conditions of possibility of the fact of revelation; second, it refers to the consequences of the fact of revelation which are originally given in the fact itself. A fact, though concrete and self-sufficient to some extent, refers not only to its conditions of possibility, but to its real and possible developments as well. This development is perceived as a process of fulfillment. The poor fact is simultaneously a reference to the rich fact that opens up the poor fact and leads it into a wider context. The rich fact, however, always contains the original fact as the core of a dynamic development. A philosophical theory is derived from the rich fact of revelation and focuses on the conditions and perspectives of the fact in the framework of its intrinsic dynamism, that is, its openness to the experience of openness. For all that, a philosophy of revelation would be meaningless without the theology of revelation. When I say, however, that a philosophy of revelation presupposes the theology of revelation, I have in mind two connections. The first is that a philosophical theory of revelation is grounded in the theology of revelation inasmuch as what is considered the axiom of theology, the fact of revelation, is the very fact on which a philosophy of revelation is based. The other connection is that a philosophical theory of revelation anticipates a more encompassing theology of revelation, precisely by its philosophical work to explore the richness of the fact of revelation. While philosophy ultimately aims at a theology of revelation, a theology of revelation in its turn presupposes a philosophy of revelation. Their relationship is both intrinsic and intricate. It is intrinsic, since they intrinsically belong together by virtue of the fact of divine revelation axiomatically presupposed by theology and explored in its fact character by philosophy; and it is intricate, because both theology and philosophy have their philosophical and theological sides respectively. Yet it is philosophy that is open to the richness of the fact of revelation; and it is theology that considers the fact of revelation as an axiom. Ultimately, philosophy is a gesture of freedom inasmuch as it does not subordinate itself to the overall control of an ultimate axiom. Theology, however, offers a theological interpretation of the fact of freedom as embodied in the axiom of revelation. Alongside with the philosophical and theological theories of revelation, we find other kinds of theory as well, such as the historical, the historical-typical,

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and the phenomenological theories. We can term a theory historical in one of the following three senses. First, an historical theory of revelation situates the fact of revelation in the historical structure of the universe or merely of human culture. In this sense, divine revelation is an occurrence categorically homogeneous with other occurrences of history; its meaning is determined by the prehistory and post-history of revelation. Second, an historical theory of revelation may consider the historical fact of revelation as a unique occurrence. For instance, in the fact of revelation, the prehistory is summarized, and in the post-history of revelation the uniqueness of the fact is spelled out in historical terms. This second understanding of history may still be a strictly historical theory of revelation, because it does not associate with sui generis philosophical and theological questions. The third possibility of an historical theory is a descriptive history, in which each empirical occurrence of history counts to be an empirical occurrence of revelation. There is, in this view, no higher realm of a philosophical or theological theory; we are confined to the empirical reality of simple history, which is at the same time the history of revelation. It seems, however, that a simple history of revelation is all too simple from the philosophical point of view. To understand revelation as a poor fact is insufficient in view of the possibility of considering it as a rich fact; a simple history of revelation calls for a broader conception of history, philosophy, and theology. In a similar vein we can say that a merely historical theory of revelation, which does not attribute a unique significance to the fact of revelation, is certainly possible, but it cannot orient people about the intrinsic importance of certain historical events. In this perspective, the fact of the death of Jesus was an occurrence categorically indistinguishable from similar executions in the same period. If there was a difference, it was only extrinsic, that is, related to the empirical existence of a group which attributed a certain importance to such an event. For this group, however, the event is of a paradigmatically allegorical nature which a merely historical theory of revelation is not able to recognize. A wider understanding of the historical theory, in which the uniqueness of certain occurrences is taken into consideration, implies a philosophical or even a theological point of view. As it seems, with a certain commitment to the latter views, we cannot produce a strong historical theory of revelation. An historical-typical theory of revelation acknowledges a structure of types of events which coordinate simple historical goings-on. The sacred and the profane, the god and the goddess, the priest and the prophet are types which can be determined using thoroughgoing historical documentation. The main source of such a classification is the study of the history of religions as mirrored especially in their sacred writings and traditions. Other sources, such as rites, sacred procedures, or folklore information, may be included in the process of classification. The result is a system of classes or types which appear to exist not merely in the historical phenomena themselves, but rather on a level of understanding these phenomena. In this latter sense, the historical-typical theory of revelation shifts close to a phenomenology of revelation. The historical-typical theory does not claim to go radically beyond the level of common abstraction; types are entities abstracted from

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the sources of historical research. Still, an historical-typical theory does not reflect on the epistemological difficulty of a procedure that produces well-formed types without any a priori conceptual structure. Just as in acquiring the knowledge of a language we need a preceding structure of logical connections or even a mental grammar, so the historical-typical classification also needs a priori structures which cannot be derived from empirical-historical research. If the theory in question is about divine revelation, it needs a schema of revelation exemplified in various historical formations. A phenomenological theory of revelation is different from the historical-typical kind in that it is not bound to historical research; however, it can refer to historical facts as exemplifications of essential structures. Every phenomenology is derived from a description of experience in order to indicate the existence and the activity of a transcendental subjectivity in which structures of meanings are ultimately constituted. Transcendental subjectivity is not an empirical ego, you or me; it is not a solitary thinker’s subject, but rather the active power in which meanings can appear in the first place. A naïve theory of experience would localize the sources of knowledge in empirical impressions; but already a logical analysis points out that fundamental logical notions cannot be derived from experience. The context of meaning, that is, “subjectivity,” precedes and constitutes the field of experience, even the field of logical entities as well. Subjectivity can be understood, in this context, either as a transcendental subjectivity or a structured community of transcendental subjects, that is, intersubjectivity. A phenomenological theory of revelation describes, analyzes, and systematizes those meanings by which we become able to speak of divine revelation. We can raise two further questions concerning possible theories of divine revelation. The one is conventional: is there any other kind of theory relevant here? My answer is that by offering the view of the simple historical theory as well as the phenomenological one, I  have outlined, on a general level, the possibilities of a philosophical theory of divine revelation. Here I cannot list nontheoretical forms of revelation, such as intuition, inspiration, teaching, or existence (such as being a holy person); these are not theories. One may find further theoretical possibilities, but these can turn out to be variations of the kinds I mentioned. One example suffices here:  A  linguistic approach to revelation may focus on the expressions we use to describe the sources and structures of revelation. In such an approach, fundamental expressions—such as “revelation”—are investigated in detail in view of their everyday meanings, historical etymology, and logical relations. The basis of such a theory, however, is historical-typical. The units of meaning of everyday language, in view of which we develop a central meaning of revelation, refer to a description of typical meanings. Historical etymology aims at an historical analysis and enters even the realm of simple history. The analysis of logical relations, without a phenomenological theory, remains on the level of a logical typology. As a result, these procedures do not go beyond the historical-typical kind of theory making. The second question is important: What is the kind of theory that is capable of producing a unified description of the various kinds of a theory of divine

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revelation? My answer is that this is the nonstandard radical kind of philosophical theory I am attempting to formulate here.

8. A Radical Philosophical Theology In what follows, I specify the problem of method and outline a philosophical theory of revelation as a radical philosophical theology. Philosophy in the modern and contemporary sense is a general discipline capable of presenting theoretical considerations of anything possessing intellectual, moral, political, or scientific importance. It is a theoretical tool used by the sciences as well as by theology. A logical understanding of philosophy is ubiquitous in the theory of science, and to some extent the same is true in theology. In this elementary sense it is certainly possible to speak of a philosophy of divine revelation. Such a philosophy of revelation would be identical with a logical analysis of the expressions and their meanings belonging to the terminology of revelation. We can define the expressions, determine their meanings, and show their relationships in the framework of a general terminology. We can ask about the validity of logical operations, but we would not be interested in their soundness nor would we take such a theory as an independent discipline. I do not deny the usefulness of such a simple philosophy of revelation. At the same time, I do not believe either that we can accomplish very much with it. Undoubtedly, we need to understand the expressions we use and their logical relations; we need to understand the matrix of the terminology in which we apply our words. Nevertheless, such a philosophy of revelation falls short of what we may attain if we consider the importance of the notion of revelation. A philosophical theory of revelation either follows a limited understanding of philosophy, but then it is not able to consider the dramatic development which has taken place in the notion of revelation and philosophy during two millennia. Or it takes into consideration both the development of philosophy and the changes in the notion of revelation I described above, but then it should have a radically new form different from the limited conceptions. We possess the following historical instances with respect to the role of philosophy in its endeavor to understand revelation: 1. The conception of rational theology of medieval Scholasticism either in its original form or its renewed versions 2. The rational universalism of the Enlightenment period 3. Transcendentalism in its various forms 4. Logical and linguistic analysis 5. Phenomenological and existentialist philosophy 6. A radical philosophical theology Ad (1): The notion of rational theology is close to the notion of a simple philosophical theory of revelation mentioned above. Such a theory is rational inasmuch as it follows the logical order of the created universe in the peculiar way possible

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for the human mind. The order of the created universe is expressed not only in the fact of the creation, but in the geometrical and mathematical regularities of the heavens and the earth, regularities which can be grasped by the mind. The mind, therefore, is able to follow these rules merely by using its created sources. With respect to divine revelation, rational theology focuses on its conditions of possibility in nature or the human mind in such a way that the horizon of its approach is given by the fact of revelation. Even though the cosmological presuppositions of this notion have dramatically changed during the past centuries, I still believe that this kind of philosophy of revelation is viable as concerns the natural and human conditions of revelation. Its applicability, however, is confined to the investigation of a limited notion of divine revelation, in which revelation is conceived of in terms of a rational doctrine. The theology presupposed by this conception of rational theory is one that is centered on traditional cosmology and on the mind’s role in it. If therefore the universe proves to be more complicated than, or even inconsistent with, such a cosmology, not only does the corresponding theology change, but its correlate, rational theology changes as well. Ad (2): The age of Deism was based on the understanding that the universe is similar to a machine in which every part has its well-defined role; there is no place for anything uncertain, undefined, indefinite, not to say strictly supernatural. This conviction was supported by the rapid development of mathematics, physics, cosmology, and engineering. The traditional relationships between the mind and the world, God and human beings have changed; humanity’s mental abilities seemed to be able to conceive and rule everything on earth and heaven. God could still be assumed as the maker of the machine of a Newtonian universe, but theology in the traditional sense seems to possess no scientific significance whatsoever in this framework; at best, it is about moral and political conduct. In the scientific sense, defined by the evolving sciences, there is no need for an omnipotent God, and such a notion becomes first nonoperational, then dispensable. It is due to various moral, political, and logical arguments that hindered a quick disposal of the notion of a God in the framework of rational universalism. The Enlightenment period continued this kind of argumentation and concluded in the necessity of a general rational theory of the universe. This theory must be philosophical and scientific at the same time. Philosophy as rational universalism, however, contained not only scientific but theological parts as well, such as the various rational arguments for the existence and attributes of God. Revelation became identified with dogmatic propositions formulated especially by the representatives of the Second Scholasticism.68 A  philosophical theory of 68 Cf., for instance, the words of Francisco Suarez:  “[By revelation] we understand the simple and sufficient proposition of the revealed objects, whether or not this object be believed on the part of him to whom this revelation is made, and whether this revelation is effected interiorly and directly by God Himself or through His angels, or whether this revelation be made externally through human preaching” (De necessitate gratiae, Opera omnia [Paris: Vives, 1886], Tomus septimus. II, 1, pp. 588–9). The translation is from Latourelle, Theology of Revelation, p. 183.

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revelation could not mean much more than the logically exact definition of the possibility and necessity of God’s intervention in the natural order conceived in terms of a closed system. Ad (3):  Kant’s thought did not allow the formulation of theoretical propositions concerning either the existence of God or revelation; the notion of supernatural revelation was indeed a favorite target of Kantian sarcasm. At the same time, Kant used the expression “philosophical theology” in his later writings to the effect that the existence of God can still be assumed or postulated on practical grounds. According to his later view, divine revelation as an intervention in human history was not only possible but even necessary. For Kant, only by such an intervention did it seem possible to bring about the establishment of God’s church of a rational faith on earth. In this framework, the basis of Kantian philosophical theology was the mind’s transcendental character, that is to say its capacity to recognize its own postulates. A postulate is by definition a necessary presupposition of the mind, a feature of its structure which discloses a deeper layer of reality.69 German philosophers of the subsequent generations took up the line of a philosophical theology and developed it into a universal theory of the ego (Fichte), the Spirit (Hegel), and God as a universal process in itself as well as in nature and history (Schelling). The common ground of these approaches is that they considered the mind and God as two sides of the same coin; the human intellect belongs to God and conversely, God belongs to the human intellect. This does not mean that God is seen pantheistically or the mind divinized. In such a configuration, if carefully formulated, both the absoluteness of God and the finite nature of the mind can be well preserved. Ad (4): From time to time, the notion of revelation becomes the target of logical analysis, such as in Bernard Bolzano’s investigation of the notion of divine revelation.70 Here Bolzano distinguishes various kinds of revelation beginning with the most general one up to the specific an authentic notion of revelation which entails the full cause of God as the revealer, the unconditional knowledge of the receiver 69 We can make postulates in logic and mathematics in order to demonstrate series of consequences and their combinations. A philosophical postulation is of a different kind. Consider, for instance, the communicative situation:  when speaking to another person I postulate a number of important structural features I cannot neglect or deny if and when I want to remain in the communicative situation. For instance, I postulate that the other person understands what I am saying; that she can answer or react to what I am saying; that there is a linguistic realm in which we, she and I, freely define ourselves and the other person; what I say and she says more or less express what I think and she thinks; she and I can conceive our thoughts properly and find the more or less exact words and sentences to express these thoughts; these thoughts are meaningful and even useful to some extent; we pertain to a community of communicative beings that understand our way of thinking and language. And so on. These postulates can be reduced to some basic principles which we cannot disregard in a concrete situation of communication. 70 Bernard Bolzano, Lehrbuch der Religionswissenschaft, vols 4. (Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag-Günther Holzbog, 1994), vol. I, pp. 113–5.

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of revelation about God’s full causality of revelation, and finally God’s testifying in an objective manner to the receiver of revelation concerning the cause, the content and the form of what is revealed by God.71 This kind of logical analysis is accompanied by the linguistic one seeking to define as exactly as possible the terms used. After Bolzano, others followed the path of the logical, and sometimes the linguistic analysis, however only a few authors were able to offer the encompassing view of revelation outlined by Bolzano. In an almost forgotten book, Georges Mavrodes offers a clear logical description of the notion of revelation and tries to develop a corresponding theory of logical analysis.72 The merit of Mavrodes’s analysis is the explanation of the relationships entailed in the notion of revelation. The disadvantage is a certain lack of the historical dimension which is important to understand the evolution of the notion itself. This lack was to some extent taken up by Terence Penelhum in a short but well-structured piece.73 Penelhum connects the notion of revelation to the basic belief category developed by Alvin Plantinga in his many writings and shows that it is an essential part of our knowledge of revelation that we are aware of its revelational character, beyond the propositional content. This kind of argumentation has become sporadic since that time, yet it clearly offers a way to approach the mysterious fact of revelation in its various dimensions beginning with our awareness of it through the historical presuppositions of the propositional content and form up to the important linguistic problems the expression “revelation” entails. Ad (5): Phenomenology attempted to go beyond early German transcendentalism in that it was able to include real experience into the transcendental analysis of the mind. In this approach, the divide between transcendentalism and real experience, a holdover of Kantian thought, seemed to be overcome. Husserl (“categorical intuition”) and Max Scheler (“intuition of material values”) were the first champions of this new synthesis on realist grounds. However, Franz Brentano’s theory of intentionality already explored this possibility to some extent and developed it into an “empirical psychology” which Brentano himself termed “phenomenology.” In this new synthesis of thought and reality various possibilities emerged, such as those emphasizing the realist side, and those focusing on the mental side of the newly defined transcendental field. Husserl articulated the mental side, Scheler the subjective and emotional component, while Roman Ingarden and others the real moment; “idealism” and “realism” clashed again even if their meaning had changed. Husserl’s idealism was an empirical and logical “idealism,” and the realism of realist phenomenology was closer to logical Platonism than to simple empiricism. Heidegger, however, was able to go beyond the opposing views by pointing out the eminent role of real

71 Cf. Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, pp. 93–111. 72 George I. Mavrodes, Revelation in Religious Belief (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988). 73 Terence Penelhum, Revelation and Philosophy, in: Avis, Paul (ed.), Divine Revelation. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 45–97.

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existence as human existence or Dasein and its function in synthesizing the realist and the idealist sides.74 Phenomenological transcendentalism had important theoretical consequences for the theory of revelation:  universal typologies of revelation, such as those of Gerardus van der Leeuw and Mircea Eliade emerged in this perspective. The philosophical and theological consequences appeared, however, in the works of leading theologians and philosophers, such as Erich Przywara, even though some of them never mention their historical sources. In the approach made possible by Heidegger’s synthesis, not a divine doctrine, not the human mind, not even the God-man composite stands at the center of an appropriate understanding of revelation, but the unique fact of individual existence with its irreducible, non-definable, yet factual character as the central expression and realization of revelation. Ad (6):  A  radical philosophical theology of divine revelation is the theory applied in the present work. It has the following characteristics: a) A radical philosophical theology of divine revelation is aware of the philosophical and theological importance of the various theories summarized above. By this awareness, the nonstandard radical theory does not commit the mistake of uninformed naïveté which pretends to be more important than other theories just by ignoring them. Behind such a position there is philosophical and theological superficiality, and its theoretical consequence is insignificant. We are invited not only to recognize the various theoretical forms, but to see their advantages and disadvantages, to see which can be utilized and which is inapplicable. In a radical theory of revelation we are to envision not only the history of revelation in terms of its striking changes and development, but similarly the changes and the development of the theories of revelation as well. b) A radical philosophical theology of divine revelation synthesizes the previous theoretical approaches inasmuch as it is able to grasp and develop their most important features. Thus it acknowledges the importance of a philosophy that focuses on the natural and human conditions of revelation in view of the fact of revelation not merely as previously given, but as a revelation to be accomplished. It acknowledges the importance of attempts to create a general system of the universe where the consequences of human nonproportionality would be eliminated. It corrects, however, the principle of such theories by pointing out the theoretical impossibility of such a universal system. If this system is impossible, then revelation as a non-reducible and ultimate fact comes to the fore and claims its rights. A radical philosophical theology of revelation calls attention to the importance of transcendentalism. Transcendentalism was able to go beyond the empiricist-rationalist divide

74 For more detail about the role and content of realist phenomenology in Catholic thought, see Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, pp. 297–316.

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and create a synthesis which proved to be the most influential philosophical endeavor since Greek philosophy. However, the radical theory of revelation points out the perils implicit in a view which considers the human mind and God in the framework of a proportional correlation. There is no such universal balance; the weight of this correlation is overwhelmingly on the side of God, to apply a simple formula.75 Nevertheless, it is the merit of the transcendentalist conception that God’s revelation as self-revelation was conceived in clear terms for the first time. A radical philosophical theology of revelation, moreover, rejects the view that the unique nature of existence in its narrow sense, especially as a physical or historical existence, can be the ultimate criterion of a philosophical theory of revelation. While this latter theory recognizes an important aspect of reality, it does not see that real existence, such as the existence of a human being in his or her contingency, calls for a correlative absolute as a counterpart and fulfillment of contingency. Nevertheless, the notion of personhood, a common legacy of Christian theology and twentieth-century existentialism, is one of the most important notions in a radical philosophical theology of revelation. c) A radical philosophical theology is aware of the fact that a mere aggregate of the essential features of earlier philosophical conceptions is insufficient for developing a unified theory. Such a theory is already presupposed as soon as a unified evaluation of earlier theories is attempted. This means that there is a theoretical form that is presupposed by the development, similarity, and difference of earlier forms; intuitively, this theory has a methodology and an achievement pointing beyond the earlier theories. This radical philosophical theology can be considered as the theoretical dimension of the notion of revelation which emerged and became clarified during the theological and philosophical process of the past periods. In other words, if this theory is nonstandard, then it does not fit in with the historically determined philosophies of revelation, and if it is radical, then its notion of revelation goes beyond the notions that served as a basis of the other theories. d) The central claim of a radical philosophical theology of revelation is the following: it is not the theory, theological, philosophical, or otherwise, that determines the notion of revelation which is dealt with in the theory. On the contrary, it is the radical fact of revelation in the perspective of which an appropriate though nonproportional theory of revelation can be developed.

75 The principle of correlation between the divine and the human, as the core of revelation, is exceptionally grasped and explained in Johann Sebastian von Drey, Apologetik als wissenschaftliche Nachweisung der Göttlichkeit des Christentums in seiner Erscheinung (Mainz:  Florian Kupferberg, 1844). See, for instance, vol. 2, pp. 251–2, where he describes the interaction between the divine and the human in a deep way. This text will be published in Balázs M. Mezei, Francesca Murphy, and Kenneth Oakes, Downhill All the Way: Religious Narrations of Unbelief in Modernity, Illuminating Modernity Series (New York: Bloomsbury, forthcoming).

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It is not the notion of revelation which creates the fact of revelation, but it is the fact of revelation which makes possible the notion of revelation. It is not the theory of revelation that produces the fact of revelation, but the fact of revelation is such that it can be expressed in a theoretical form as a radical philosophical theology of revelation. But the fact of revelation can only be understood nonproportionally by any theory and thus it remains underdetermined even by a radical theory of revelation. However, if the radical theory of revelation is not open to the absolute fact of revelation in its factuality, conditions, and consequences, if it is not open to the dynamic framework in which revelation is the revelation of revelation, then this theory becomes limited and closes itself to the fact of revelation. It is the radical openness of the philosophical theory that makes possible its understanding of the fact of revelation. This understanding, nevertheless, remains nonproportional, which is precisely the reason why a radical philosophical theology of revelation is able to maintain its openness. If it was a real possibility for such a theory to understand revelation “fully” or “entirely,” that would lead to a closure of the openness of the radical theory of revelation. Its openness is safeguarded by the principle of nonproportionality: infiniti ad finitum nulla proportio. However, precisely the recognition of this nonproportionality makes it possible that we realize the fact of revelation and also the possibility to find the appropriate form of thinking of and through revelation as nonproportionally conceived. e) A radical philosophical theology of divine revelation is both philosophical and theological. It is theological, because the fact it considers central is a theological fact. However, a radical philosophical theology does not use this fact as an axiom, as a certain theology does, but reaches back to the very fact of revelation as a rich fact. By realizing the difference between axiomatic theology and factually based radical philosophical theology, the latter opens up the possibility of the rethinking of theology in terms of the fact of revelation. Instead of a secondary reference to simple facts, a radical philosophical theology opens itself to the rich fact of revelation. Moreover, such a theory of revelation is philosophical, because it considers the fact from the viewpoint of its natural and cognitive conditions. Also, a nonstandard radical philosophical theology of divine revelation is not merely philosophical and theological, but emphasizes the dynamic and correlative relationship of the two sides. This is not to say that this theory takes the place of the fact; that would be impossible. The fact as such, that is, its absolute priority and factual character, is maintained in the perspective of a theory which is not possible to form without the fact of which it is a theory. f) Methodologically this means that in a radical philosophical theology of divine revelation there is again a synthesis of previous methods corresponding to various notions of revelation. The radical notion of revelation, however, leads us to a radical method in which revelation is not merely self-revelation, but also such that a theory of revelation is made thereby possible. It is made possible by the absolute fact of revelation

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corresponding, even if nonproportionally, to the openness of the radical theory to the fact of revelation. Openness is the central feature of the radical philosophical theology of divine revelation; it must be emphasized again and again that only such openness is capable—nonproportionally—to receive the fact of revelation that is the expression of the openness of the divine. The present theory, thus, is a theory of openness. In its radical openness, this theory is open to the openness of the divine in such a way that the concrete expression of this openness can be received in a nonproportional way. In fact, such a theory is a theory par excellence, because all theory is overdetermined by the facts they describe. A theory of openness thus is a theory in its essential occurrence because it is based on the recognition that the most radical fact of revelation most radically transcends the theory that is related to it. As to the subject matter of a radical philosophical theory of revelation, this is radical revelation itself. Radical revelation, however, is considered here in its theoretical dimension, that is, in the perspective of the fact of revelation. This entails that this theory is far from being a complete theory; it is not even entirely sufficient, for there is no sufficient theory of the absolute fact of revelation. In other words, a radical philosophical theology of divine revelation is by definition only an outline of such a theory; still, in many ways, a well-formed outline which makes the fact of revelation visible by its openness to the fact itself.76

9. Sources of Revelation I distinguish the traditional problem of “the fonts of revelation” from the problem of the sources. The fonts of revelation—namely the Bible, the apostolic tradition, and the words of the Magisterium—describe a problem specified in theology. The problem of the sources of revelation is more general, since it comprises the entire realm of nature and human beings. When I use “sources” without a definite article, I mean that I do not possess a complete list of the sources. The kinds I delineate below are offered from the point of view of a nonstandard theory defined in the previous section. The first difficulty concerns the meaning of a source of revelation. We tend to confuse various notions of sources. For instance, imagine the average situation when I am asked “How did you get to know him?” This question may be understood as referring to the social situation in which I met him, or the time when I got to know him. Rarely do we realize that there is a deeper layer of the question, namely, the one referring to the ultimate source of my knowledge of him.

76 The proposition “there is no sufficient theory of the fact of radical revelation” is selfrefuting only if this proposition is considered a theory. However, if it is only a reference to a theory, there is not explicit self-contradiction in the proposition.

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Generally, we are satisfied with answers such as “I met him at a social event last year,” or “We were school mates many years ago.” If however one really wants to know the source of my knowledge of him, one must specify the question, for instance, in this way: “How do you know him so well?” In a possible answer I may still refer to social or chronological circumstances of my knowledge of him, although here we already surmise that such categories do not genuinely answer the question. A satisfying answer should go further than the specification of certain forms or categories in which my knowledge of him was acquired and point out, for instance, that we were good friends, so he shared his thoughts with me; he intentionally revealed his personality to me when he asked me for spiritual or existential advice. The source of my knowledge of him may be the social or chronological framework, but my genuine knowledge of him cannot originate in anything else than his intentional act of self-disclosing. We can thus distinguish between two basic meanings of a source:  form and content. The form is that in which the content is given; the content is communicated in a certain way or form. I know him because he was introduced to me at an occasion (form), or I know him because we had a unique conversation at some point (content). Genuinely, I cannot know anybody in the proper sense if not by virtue of his or her intentional self-disclosing. This knowledge, based on self-disclosure, is always about the person in his or her inner quality as a person. However, this kind of knowledge is necessarily contextualized along the lines of social or chronological factors or with respect to certain problems which he shared with me. In a similar fashion, the question about the sources of revelation has a formal and a material meaning. The formal meaning refers to certain categorical forms in which revelation is communicated, such as location, time, or historical circumstances, and the material meaning refers to the genuine source itself, the act of revelation, which necessarily possesses a content. Sources of revelation may be either of the two. Yet most importantly the very source of revelation is never about the circumstances but about the content. Although form and content can be clearly distinguished, it is obvious that they often overlap. A prophecy as a source of divine revelation, for instance, refers to the form in the first instance, but this form largely determines the content which is given in prophetic inspiration, since prophesies typically point to future occurrences. If I do not take the form into consideration, I can easily misunderstand the content. I may believe that a certain revelation is about the past, when in reality it is about the future, given its oracular form which can be expressed in terms of past events yet in reality they communicate something about the future. There are also cases in which the content determines the form, for example, in certain kinds of artistic expressions. Exceptional artists tend to produce their own specific musical or literary genres in which they express their messages; they create relevant forms for the content they wish to express. The overlapping of form and content can develop into a full coincidence in some cases; exceptionally strong emotional experiences, such as forceful joy or deep grief, do not need forms properly speaking, as they express themselves directly in uncontrolled laughter or weeping.

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It is therefore important not only to distinguish form and content of revelation but to consider their relationship as well. Moreover, it is equally important to see that in some cases revelation does not need to be contextualized; it does not need “circumstances,” it does not have “foundations.” Revelation may be direct in the sense that no form mediates it; it becomes simply present without the necessity to add “in a certain way,” “in some form,” or “under certain circumstances.” There may be no “how” of a “what.” This “what” may be about many things, such as the conviction that God’s will is this or that, or that good deeds are their own reward, or again that forgiving someone is by itself a good. These pieces of knowledge may be present to the mind and they do not need to have a special form; they are simply present. In other cases, nevertheless, the content of revelation may not be specific. It may not be about something in the concrete sense, that is, it may not have any special content. It can be just about itself—revelation as a direct self-disclosure— without concrete pieces of knowledge. In such occasions, the formal element of revelation is minimized; revelation is just about itself. Still, such direct and selfcontained disclosure may have a number of consequences in our mental, emotional, or physical life. I may become convinced of something, I may feel a sudden wave of bliss, or again moral strength needed for a certain decision. One tends to speak of experiences in such cases, but it seems that the reference to “experience” is not necessary here; “experience” is already a kind of mediation. It can indeed happen that I become aware of certain facts, truths, states of affair, or that I change radically in my general behavior from one day to another without acquiring revelation “in a certain way.” In some theological interpretations, however, direct revelation is usually dealt with skepticism. The reason is clear: if there is no form, the genuine nature of direct revelation cannot be determined externally. On the theoretical level, however, we may say that divine revelation does not necessarily imply a definite form; it can be communicated without any instance, yet with an overall effect on the receiver of revelation. Divine revelation is by definition a communication of God. What “God” and “communication” mean in this context is the important question here. The term “God” is exposed to a number of mistakes, misunderstandings, and misrepresentations. A superficial atheism, which knows merely what Husserl calls “horizontal thinking,” tries to guarantee its positions by limiting the meaning of the term “God” to certain kinds, such as “the supernatural,” “the natural,” or “the pantheistic.” However, if God is called “supernatural,” it does not mean that God is isolated from nature and put into the “prison” of the supernatural. “Supernatural” is not a locative; it is an intrinsic quality which fits in with, but does not exclude, other qualities. God is supernatural but not anti-natural; God imbues nature but in a supernatural way; God is natural, but not in the sense that excludes supernaturality; God cannot be restricted, in general, to one or more qualities. If we agree with Albert Einstein that “behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp,” then there is “a something” beyond the realm of the physical; there is, in simple words, a source of the physical which is

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not physical.77 I think this is obvious: the origin of “something” is not identical with “something.” If you define “something” as the totality of the physical universe, then the “origin of something” is beyond the totality of the physical universe. God’s supernatural nature means nothing less than God’s being beyond the totality of the physical universe. The real question here is the nature of this “being beyond.” If God is absolute, then God’s being beyond the totality of the physical universe is not of the kind of a satellite’s being beyond the atmosphere of the earth. Rather, God is beyond the universe in his own characteristic way, that is, divinely or absolutely, and it is fairly obvious that we are naturally short of words to explain such transcendence in a more complex way. God’s absoluteness entails free revelation. In this sense, God is the most important source of revelation as to both form and content. If God is absolute, God communicates. This does not mean that God necessarily communicates, for there is no natural or logical necessity in God. God’s absoluteness entails absolute freedom, absolute freedom entails the freedom of communication, and only the latter entails de facto communication. In other words, divine revelation is grounded in divine absoluteness, but never in the sense of some limited, mechanical, or logical necessity. If there is communication at all, God certainly communicates in a number of ways; actually, in any number of ways. Broadly speaking, everything can be a form of God’s revelation: a piece of cloud, the rising moon, a sudden insight, the ripple of a stream in a spring forest, the cry of a baby, or even a movement of a satellite on the night sky. It is not that God supersedes these entities by communicating through them. God communicates through these entities without altering or destroying them. God’s communication is expressed precisely through what these entities are in themselves. Analogously, beauty is present in a composition by Felix Mendelssohn, in a human face, in an old piece of wood, or in a nicely manufactured book. Beauty does not change these entities in their beings, nor can these entities hinder the expression of beauty in them; they are beautiful. Beauty is not confined to them; it is expressed through them and in them and it points beyond all individual instances. God’s communication is initially ubiquitous. From the viewpoint of a more accurate consideration, however, we tend to distinguish between two main natural forms of God’s communication: the world and the mind. God communicates through the world and in the world; he can express himself in the features of a human face, in the genetic structures of living beings, or in the milliards of stars on the night sky. World and nature are communications of God. Nevertheless, this communication is perceived not in or by nature, for otherwise there would be no need of perception; if there is perception, there is mind as well. God’s communication is perceived by the mind, by its faculties or by some combination of these faculties. Not only is the starry sky a communication of God, but more importantly

77 Quoted in Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006), p. 19.

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my own mind: my emotions, volitions, understandings, memories, imaginations, and insights; my concrete being. Seen from the point of view of a nonstandard radical theory of revelation, there is a state of mind in which the mind reaches the limit of its natural capacities and opens up to an even fuller communication of and by God. Traditionally, though not very accurately, we denote this kind of communication by using versions of the Latin word “fides,” that is, faith. Faith is a borderline capacity of the mind. On the one hand, it synthesizes emotion, volition, understanding, memory, imagination, and insight; on the other hand, it offers a radical openness in which the mind is freed from its conditions of possibility and virtual structures and becomes able to use its ultimate freedom for an ultimate decision.78 There is a realm between the mind and the world where God communicates in ways different from the modes of the world and the mind: culture. Culture, being the palpable product of the mind, is not nature; it is not mind either, being a product of the mind in the world. Culture has objectivity similar to the objectivity of the world, but it has subjectivity as well, similar to that of the mind. In the realm of culture, nature and mind merge and produce a new dimension of reality. Culture is a term we normally apply to the sum of the cultural phenomena. If we want to refer to the dynamism of the same phenomena, we speak of history. Philosophy, the sciences and the arts, the morals and society are all present in what we denote as history in the proper sense. Certainly, there is “natural history,” the history of the universe, or the history of biological species. The fundamental meaning of history, however, is the historical process of culture, in which human activity constitutes its own development. The concept of natural history presupposes the concept of the history of culture, and this latter concept is itself an outcome of the same history; it is a human product. Divine communication is given both in natural and cultural history, but more centrally in the latter. Histories of ideas, societies, sciences, and arts are expressions of divine messages, and in and through them divine communication is disclosed. If we dispose of the horizon of the divine in history, we are to embrace ersatz theories, such as the historical goal of an ideal society or the power of the strong or again some other kinds of a secular teleology. However, secular theories are impoverished versions of the ultimate horizon of divine communication which leads humanity to a community with God. There is a further important consideration which helps us understand some sources of divine communication. Although God’s absoluteness entails free, unrestricted communication, this communication has two sides; the one side is ordinary communication in which God’s absoluteness is expressed in freedom, through freedom, and by effecting freedom. The other side is extraordinary communication. Since God’s absoluteness is not a logical mechanism producing divine communication by necessity, but it is rooted in absolute freedom, it is required that there be extraordinary forms of communication in the realms of world, mind,

78 See Balázs M. Mezei, Francesca Murphy, and Kenneth Oakes, Illuminating Faith: An Invitation to Theology (New York: Bloomsbury, 2015).

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and culture. This point is essentially important: divine communication, entailed by God’s absoluteness, cannot be merely ordinary communication, for God is not merely an ordinary being. If God were a logical machine with an intrinsic necessity of logical laws, then divine communication would be logically necessary and thus not free. God, nevertheless, is absolutely free, and divine communication, therefore, is both ordinary—under the rule of relevant laws—and extraordinary— reaching beyond the rule of relevant laws. A great amount of freedom would cause merely extraordinary communication; but absolute freedom results both in ordinary and extraordinary communication. The expression of God’s extraordinary communication in the world can be seen in what is often referred to as a “miracle.” Miracle is the expression of the extraordinary by means of the ordinary. A miraculous event—natural, experiential, or historical—is the occurrence of putting the ordinary into the context of the extraordinary. There is no miracle without the ordinary in which a miracle is realized. Yet the miracle is not a destruction of the ordinary; it merely shows that the extraordinary supersedes the ordinary and the latter is just a subclass of the former. We could thus say that the very existence of the world is the first and foremost “miracle.” It is God’s extraordinary communication exemplified in the framework of the ordinary. The origin of the world cannot be a natural process for the reason I mentioned above. It cannot be, therefore, governed by some necessity, as there is no necessity controlling the origin of everything. “Necessity” is there merely in the framework of the existing universe; what is “beyond” this universe cannot be described with the category of necessity, and thus the origin of the universe cannot be “necessary” strictly speaking. It cannot be accidental either, since necessity and accident are correlative terms: where we can have the one, we can have the other as well. If the birth of the cosmos is not necessary or accidental, then it is freely produced.79 If God is absolute and absolutely free, then it belongs to his freedom to freely produce a universe. This free production, indeed, is the fundamental expression of God’s extraordinary communication in the fact of the world. If the universe is God’s extraordinary communication, then the mind is a fortiori such a communication:  it is an essential expression of the extraordinary. Insofar as the mind is more fundamental than the world, its miraculous character is more fundamental as well. While the mind follows a certain structure that resembles the structure of the world, there is no overall physical necessity in the mind’s operations. Instead, there is a logical necessity in the strict sense, just as there are governing structures for all the faculties of the human mental capacity— even for fantasy. The mind’s logical structure, however, is in no way the ultimate power of the mind. The realm of logic cannot be present to itself, while the mind can be; the mind has a transparency in which logical principles are grounded. In other words, the mind’s self-reference in terms of its self-consciousness is the matrix in which logical principles are conceived. If freedom can be defined as the

79 Ontologically speaking, beside necessity, chance, and freedom we have no more option.

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lack of any limitation, then freedom, in the sense relevant for human beings, is grounded in the mind’s self-presence, that is, in self-consciousness. Self-presence or self-transparency is the manifestation of the fact that the mind as such is not limited by another force that could hinder its self-presence.80 God’s extraordinary communication cannot be better expressed than in the fact of the mind’s freedom. Even if human freedom is expressed in the framework of real-physical existence, its principle is clearly recognizable and in some cases realizable as well. Though we have no absolute freedom, we do have freedom; our bodies are less free than our minds, and our self-awareness is freer than a train of thoughts in which logical rules apply. The world has only reflections of this human freedom. In this sense, the world is mind-dependent; and while the mind is in a number of ways positioned in the world, in principle it is not world-dependent. God’s ordinary communication is the marvelous realm of the mind’s common operations, such as its imagination, perception, volition, and the like. The extraordinary communication of God is connected to the mind’s highest capacity by which the mind freely recognizes, acknowledges, and chooses its own origin. Mind and world are united in what we call a “human person.” Human persons in their physical, social, mental, and especially personal existence are the most important bearers of divine revelation. Revelation is directed to human persons and human personhood is such that it is capable of receiving revelation. The personal nature of human beings can be best grasped in their irreplaceable character: a human person is such that it is not only singular, like any individual thing in the world, but rather unique. The difference between singularity and uniqueness is not only a difference in a kind; rather it is a difference in kinds, since uniqueness entails a non-substitutable, non-repeatable, and non-reducible kind. Individual things have their limited individuality, non-substitutability, and non-repeatability. Defined by their external and internal circumstances, individual things exist in a singular way. Yet human persons are not only singular, as beings in the world. They are also unique as personal beings. In other words, human persons embody absoluteness in the concrete form of the unity of mind and world. As personal absolutes, human persons are eminent receivers of divine revelation; revelation is precisely that which is directed to persons. Human personhood, therefore, counts as an important source of revelation, though of course not the ultimate source, which is God. Nevertheless, divine revelation entails the existence of persons as receivers of revelation, and this entailment explains the fact that there are human persons.81 While history is an ordinary form of God’s communication, there is an extraordinary form and an extraordinary history, which is normally referred to as “saving history,” or “history of salvation” or Heilsgeschichte. Saving history, in the

80 In certain activities, the mind’s self-presence is narrowed or becomes even latent; this however does not mean that the mind can ever lose is self-presence or self-transparency. If it loses it in certain ways, it keeps it as a possibility ready to be activated at any time. 81 See, for more details, Chapter 6, section 3.

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theological sense, is about the coming to pass of God’s extraordinary communication in time. The fulfillment of this communication is realized in the process of history. The idea of a saving history, which goes back to the theology of the people of the Tanakh, underlies our Western idea of history up to Hegel’s historical philosophy—or even to Darwin’s naturalized “history of salvation,” in which salvation is interpreted as “the survival of the fittest.” Saving history is the form of extraordinary divine communication embedded in common history as ordinary communication. Saving history is a history of an extraordinary culture with its society and body of traditions. It is a culture of the sciences, arts, thinking, architecture, and texts. It is a tradition with all the relevant forms of an extraordinary communication. It is in the framework of a saving history that we can define further definite forms of God’s communication. Historical existence entails a process and the moments of this process; it entails also an element that is both a process and a moment of history. The process, saving history, is the process of a culture, a group of people, a definite body of traditions. God’s extraordinary communication calls for the historical existence of these forms. More importantly, God’s extraordinary communication in history calls for the individual bearers of this history that constitute the extraordinary community of salvation; it calls for extraordinary personalities. The mere fact that there are extraordinary personalities as bearers of the historical process of God’s extraordinary communication, however, requires not only a significant number of such personalities, not merely a concatenation of ingenious people of every walk of life, but also an extraordinary embodiment of the entirety of God’s extraordinary communication in one concrete person. This extraordinary person, being the crucial expression of God’s extraordinary communication, is at the same time the focal bearer of God’s ordinary communication. For it is the extraordinary that implies the ordinary, and not the other way round. In this person do we find not only the synthesis of the ordinary and extraordinary communications of God, but also the synthesis of world (God’s objective communication), mind (God’s subjective communication), and culture (God’s historical communication). This person, in the perspective of philosophical theology, embodies the fulfillment of historical communication, that is to say, the realization of God’s purpose expressed in history (God’s eschatological communication). One can argue that God’s communication—ordinary or extraordinary, objective or subjective, historical or eschatological—boils down to the fact that this communication is incarnated in one concrete personality. This personality, however, is not merely a real individual, but also a paradigmatic individual (in the sense of the paradigmatic allegory I delineated above). In this sense, this individual is the expression of all the moments and structures of divine revelation. As a result, I claim that divine revelation—while it can be analyzed in a number of ways—is essentially the revelation of a person. The history of religious formations knows of a number of such personalities, originators of great religious movements, grounders of new empires, and inventors of new ways of bliss and sanctity. Yet, on the basis of the above considerations, we realize that the existence of a certain group of miraculous personalities would not transcend the possibilities of God’s ordinary

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communication. God’s extraordinary communication calls for a personality that is unique in the most important respects, in the sense of absolute uniqueness. From the perspective of a nonstandard radical theory of revelation, the real existence of a unique personality as the synthesis of God’s ordinary and extraordinary communications is the central field in which the structures and moments of divine revelation can be observed. A radical theory of revelation does not deny or destroy the poor fact of such a real existence (the fact of revelation), but considers it in the context of its conditions and perspectives. While some might argue here that the real fact is lost in this perspective, I hold that the contrary is true: the real fact cannot be perceived sufficiently without the perspective of the rich fact and without the matrix of the conditions determining the perspective of the rich fact. The fact of revelation, if seen merely in terms of a poor fact, loses its significance and submerges in the ocean of indistinguishable, conventional, uninteresting “facts”; it becomes an average fact, insignificant and ultimately implausible. This understanding of the fact of revelation, which prevails in certain aspects of philosophical and theological scholarship, is ultimately based on the loss of interest in the fact of revelation. Yet the very fact of revelation is focused on God’s ultimate communication, both natural and supernatural, in which God reveals himself in the form of a contingent, historically concrete, and mortal human person.82

82 See especially Chapter 5 in this volume.

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Chapter 2 M ODE LS OF R EVE L AT ION

1. Preliminaries The purpose of the present chapter is to analyze the most important forms of revelation. Whether we can speak about forms, models, or just kinds of revelation, it has no impact on the original fact which revelation is; yet this one fact is expressed in various ways. These ways are partly subjective and depend on our person, situation, or understanding; partly objective as they are related to certain historical events. These are forms of revelation not in the sense that they exhaust or overwrite the original fact of revelation, but rather in the sense that they express revelation in particular ways. These ways are certainly “revelations” themselves, just as the miracles of Christ constitute revelation, or just as illumination, vision, or prophetic inspiration exemplify revelation. Yet the variety of these forms originates in the one ultimate source of revelation, divine communication, which is not distorted, modified, not to mention changed, by the ontological, psychological, existential, or historical forms of revelation. Moreover, there is a certain structure in the development of the modes of revelation throughout history, a development responding to the important changes in the life of humanity. During this development, there is no “new” revelation given or attained; it is merely the better, deeper, in some cases the more complex and more nuanced understanding of revelation as a fact that takes place in the historical process. Indeed, as I already quoted, “For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her.”1 The theoretical talk of “modes” of revelation goes back to the Letter to the Hebrews which states: In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. (Heb. 1:1–2)

The most important message of these words and what follows them is the apocalyptic event of salvation (“in these last days”) which gives the highest realization of 1 Dei Verbum, § 8 (DS 4210).

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divine providence for the world: it is God Himself in the form by which he “reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature” (Heb. 1:3) and thereby accomplishes the work of “salvation” (σωτηρία, Heb. 2:3). At the same time, it is important to see that the first sentence of the letter speaks about “many and various ways” in which God communicated to the “fathers.” The original Greek is even more emphatic when it puts the expressions πολυμερῶς καὶ πολυτρόπως at the very beginning of the sentence and thus the whole work. The meaning of πολυμερῶς is rather “in many instances,” in many parts or installments, while πολυτρόπως means “in many ways, forms, methods, or attitudes.” The point in the text is that there are many ways—in the Vulgata translation “many modes,” multi modi—of revelation, ways that are arranged on an historical scale. The paramount mode of revelation is given in Christ. This kind of approach to revelation conceived in “various modes”—modes pointing to the highest form of revelation— have been developed throughout the centuries and led to the contemporary idea of “modes” or “models” of revelation. In theological textbooks of the past century we find typologies of revelation which develop a complex list of the kinds, types, and modes of revelation. For instance, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange explains in his work De revelatione that the notion of revelation can be classified according to the Scholastic doctrine of causes. That is, the notion of revelation is to be investigated in accordance with its form, agent, material cause, and final cause. Formally, revelation can be supernatural in terms of its substance or in terms of its mode. Still as supernatural, revelation can be defined in accordance with the fashion in which it is revealed or in accordance with the psychological state of the receiver of revelation. On the side of the agent, revelation can be active or passive; as to its material cause, it can be immediate or mediate. Finally, as to its final cause, revelation can be private or public.2

2 Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, De revelatione per Ecclesiam Catholicam proposita (Romae:  Libreria Editrice Religiosa, 1951), vol. 1, pp. 153–4. Here is a list of the modes of revelation as offered by the author: Revelatio supernaturalis quoad substantiam; Revelatio supernaturalis quoad modum; Quoad modum representationis: sensibiliter imaginaliter intellectualiter; Quoad statum: in vigilia in extasi in somno Revelatio activa; Revelatio passiva; Revelatio immediata;

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This formal typology of revelation serves an introductory aim; yet even Garrigou-Lagrange explores the possibilities of such an initial classification in his work. Just as he borrowed this kind of classification from Scholastic authors, his understanding of the modes of revelation influenced a number of theologians who studied his work in the seminary. Various thinkers inside and outside Catholicism accepted and further developed this typology and built up various lists of forms or modes of revelation.3 Typologies of revelation may be understood in more than one way. There are two questions that call for an appropriate answer here. First: what is the relationship between forms of revelation and revelation itself? Second: what is the relationship among the forms of revelation? As to the first question, revelation as the ultimate fact of God’s communication is one, as I emphasized above. At the same time, there are forms of revelation, such as the ones listed by Tanquerey, GarrigouLagrange, or Latourelle, which make it possible to talk about various kinds, types, and models of revelation with respect to their relation to the one ultimate revelation of God. Visions in dream, inspiration, or a miracle are revelations in a sense different from the revelation of the incarnation of the Word of God, and though those are different forms, they are also embedded in the overarching context of the ultimate revelation expressed in the incarnation. As to the second question, the sequence of forms of revelation is historical at least in the sense that the revelation given to Moses chronologically precedes the revelation given in the incarnation; and the revelation of the incarnation chronologically precedes the revelation to be given eschatologically. These forms are not different revelations but aspects of the one revelation; they are forms of revelation not in the sense of moments contradicting to one another but in the sense of various aspects of the same whole. Such forms are chronologically arranged along an historical sequence in which they build a structure of fulfillment, and yet they also coexist in various ways. In a similar vein, revelation for instance as “doctrinal” or “existential,” as we shall see below, are aspects of the one revelation; yet they belong to an historical development which contributes to the deeper understanding of divine revelation. I begin with a general consideration of the question of kinds, sorts, types, and models. I  define the theoretical importance of models. Thereafter I  analyze the relationship between the “epochal changes” of revelation considered in Chapter 1

Revelatio mediata; Revelatio privata; Revelatio communis. 3 An important investigation concerning private revelations—published before Garrigou-Lagrange’s work—was carried out by Adolphe Tanquerey in The Spiritual Life:  A  Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology (Tournai:  Desclée, 1930). The author considers “private revelations” under the heading of “Extraordinary Mystical Phenomena” and he lists various forms of private revelation, such as “visions,” “supernatural words,” and “divine touches.” Nevertheless, he confines his investigations to private revelations only.

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on one hand, and the “models” of revelation which I  introduce in this chapter. On the basis of an extended list of models, I ask the question of the systematic character and the convergence of various models, and I elaborate what I term the dynamic understanding of models and the unity of models. I also propose the concentric model of revelation. Finally I analyze the structure of the Christian liturgy as an important symbol of the unified and dynamic nature of divine revelation.4

2. Kinds, Types, and Models On what basis and to what extent are we entitled to speak of revelation in terms of some general forms? If we do not include here the doctrine of causes as a metaphysical explanation of conceptual typologies, we can refer to the discipline of the history of religions as the most important starting point in the formation of religious notions. The history of religions analyzes traditions, written, oral, or practical, as well as teachings and other forms of reflection in a number of different religious formations, beginning with the most primitive ones to contemporary developments. Historians of religion argue that the pool of methodically collected materials concerning certain questions of religion allows first of all the formation of family resemblance groups. Family resemblance groups can be used to define kinds, the members of which are more closely related to one another in form and content. Types are empirical, when they are on a low level of abstraction and based on the collected materials of religious history; or they are more abstract, when we consider their logical structures rather than their empirical contents. A good example seems to be the notion of religion itself. “Religion” can show both the usefulness and the problems of family resemblance concepts and the kinds based on them. Christianity received the notion and the word of religio from the Romans and, by further developing this expression, produced a semantic synthesis which is the basis of our contemporary notion of a religion. Europeans came to call other formations “religions” inasmuch as they apparently resembled Christianity in some way. Today, religion seems to be in the first instance a family resemblance concept, the empirical content of which may be quite different in each case. According to this view, Confucianism or perhaps even Maoism is a “religion,” for they resemble the contents of the Western notion of religion in some sense. To consider it more strictly, however, militantly atheistic formations can hardly be considered similar to intrinsically religious formations such as Islam or Judaism. Even if Buddhism in its original form does not speak of gods or transcendent beings, its later developments—in Mahayana Buddhism, especially the Amitabha cult—provide us with a sufficient amount of evidence to hold Buddhism a religion. More strictly speaking, a religion must contain a definite belief in supernatural powers or a power and a body of cults, it must show some form of prayer or meditation, and has to have a doctrinal part of more or less well-defined teachings.

4 See also Appendix II on “The Ramifications of Revelation.”

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On this basis, we may call certain traditions “religions” in a general sense, and the more fully and articulately these features are present in a formation, the more expressly we call it a religion. In this sense, some formations are quite far from religion, as they lack such central features as the belief in a supernatural power or the otherwise widespread phenomenon of prayer. Historical eschatology or cultic phenomena are in themselves insufficient to define a tradition as a religion. Religions, nevertheless, show the peculiar feature of historical development. On the basis of the most perspicuous tendencies, religions of humanity tend to become ever more centered on the individual or personal salvation. The great epoch of “the axial period,” as Karl Jaspers called it, contains the most important developments of the sixth and the fifth centuries bc.5 During these centuries fundamentally new teachings and practices appeared, such as the schools of Lao-tse and Confucius, the fellowship of the Buddha, the reform of Persian Zoroastrianism, the work of some of the most important prophets of Israel, and the first Greek philosophers in Asia Minor. The common feature of this period is the discovery of the urgency of individual salvation as opposed to the emphasis on collective religious fulfillment of earlier periods. As it seems, Christianity is the highest expression of this tendency; Islam, however, does not seem to represent a substantial development, since it appears to have been a fortification of a certain kind of prophetic cult which subordinated the problem of individual salvation to the social activity of an inspired prophet. In this sense, Islam is the most widespread reaction to the religion of individual-personal salvation embodied—on different levels and in various forms—in the many branches of Christianity.6 At the same time, “religion” continued its development, as various emerging forms of Christianity and other traditions clearly show. Protestantism led to a simplification and alteration of basic Christian features with a stronger emphasis on individuality and the distinction between the divine and human realms. Catholicism, which used to represent traditionalism as opposed to the Protestant faith in progress, has been considerably changed during the centuries; what we see

5 Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), p.  2: “The most extraordinary events are concentrated in this period, Confucius and Laotse were living in China, all the schools of Chinese philosophy came into being, including those of Mo-ti, Chuang-tse, Lieh-tsu and a host of others; India produced the Upanishads and Buddha and, like China, ran the whole gamut of philosophical possibilities down to skepticism, to materialism, sophism and nihilism; in Iran Zarathustra taught a challenging view of the world as a struggle between good and evil; in Palestine the prophets made their appearance, from Elijah by way of Isaiah and Jeremiah to Deutero-Isaiah; Greece witnessed the appearance of Homer, of the philosophers Parmenides, Heraclitus and Plato of the tragedians, Thucydides and Archimedes. Everything implied by these names developed during these few centuries almost simultaneously in China, India, and the West, without any one of these regions knowing of the others.” 6 Islam’s emphatic monotheism and the rejection of “giving a partner to God” is an expression of its anti-individualistic tendencies.

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in its contemporary changes is a new proposal to attain a universal form of religion.7 In all these changes, religion shows a perspicuous development in which the importance of political ideologies—such as Marxism—can be seen in a sharper light. These ideologies appear to have evolved from a universal form of religion, but they have narrowed down religion to the relationships of earthly, material power, such as economic and political factors. Still, these developments, especially after the historic failure of the early types of national-socialism and communism, may contribute to the formation of new developments in what we call “religion” today. That is especially shown by the fact that ideologies, economic changes, and cultural preferences most closely interact and even mingle with religious developments in the world today. The general form of “religion,” thus, seems to be simultaneously concrete yet flexible: it has some central characteristics, but it is open to further developments.8 The flexibility of such forms raises however the question of the reliability and usefulness of general kinds, types, or models. “Kinds” of religion presupposes only a vague notion of religion, while “types” of religion refer to a better-defined notion of religion and of the special form of religion as well. Models are constructs produced on the basis of empirical evidence with the explicit purpose of theoretical classification. While kinds are more or less natural groupings appearing spontaneously in experience, types are results of higher abstraction; still, even types show a certain level of naturalness. Types are present in experience, though we need to delineate them in concrete forms. At the same time, types serve a theoretical purpose; we define them in order to enlighten horizontal and vertical relations and their structures in experience. Models are even more useful for such purposes. We produce models on the basis of kinds and types on a high level of abstraction to use them in a theoretical arrangement of experience in order to better understand their theoretical importance. This also means that models are rather flexible and changeable in accordance with experience. Whenever we develop a model, we not only adjust experience to it, but also the model to experience and amend it in some way if necessary. There is, thus, a living interaction between model and experience. That is why models are most appropriate to consider the richness of experience—be it sensory, conceptual, or logical. The use of models implies the following five steps: 1. Initial, naïve consideration of experience (sensory, conceptual, logical, or any other kind); 2. Theoretical construction of models on the basis of natural groupings of experience into kinds and types (construction takes place by organizing abstract features and typical unities into a theoretical whole);

7 Cf. Chapter 7, section 3, on Catholicity. 8 Cf. Peter L. Berger, The Many Altars of Modernity: Towards a Paradigm for Religion in a Pluralistic Age (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014).

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3. Definition of a model in the abstract sense—only on this level do we produce the model in the strict sense; 4. Application of the model to experience again with the purpose of understanding or—in some cases—reproducing experience; 5. Amendments of the model on the basis of relevant experience. Such changes can either be partial, affecting merely some features, or complete, affecting the whole. In the latter case we construct a new model instead of the earlier one which failed to clarify sufficiently understanding and practice. Each of these steps allows for a more detailed analysis, since they involve a number of further procedures. Thus the initial consideration of experience entails an initial abstraction, in which the direct presence of experience is put into a perspective of spontaneous interpretation. Such a putting into perspective presupposes, however, a latent or explicit definition of the kind of experience in question. For there is a clear difference between external, worldly experience, and internal, psychological experience; between indirect experience related in written sources, and conceptual experience of the mind; or between mental experience in a general sense, and the logical structure of experience. In any case, various levels of abstraction are realized up to the level of types; models, however, are refined theoretical instruments. The problem of kinds and types of revelation can be described as follows. Inasmuch as revelation is experience, it is of a unique kind. Revelation is not given spontaneously to the experiencing subject in the way contents of the natural world or the mind are given; revelation is revealed, its essential feature is precisely this being-revealed. The average procedure of formation of kinds, applied to revelation, faces here a serious difficulty: the lack of experience independent of revelation itself. It is true that we can form general categories of revelation on the basis of psychological data, written sources, or oral narratives. The essential feature of these categories, however, is precisely their being revealed; their being experienced is dependent on their revelational character. That is why the meaning of kinds and types changes in the case of revelation: they are kinds and types in a special sense. Since the kinds and types of revelation are ultimately not dependent on experience, but on revelation itself, they can be defined only with respect to their content. If there is a possibility to classify revelation on a subjective basis, that is, with respect to the receiver of revelation, the appropriate openness to revelation is what needs to be emphasized. Openness to revelation is the ontological basis of the reception of revelation. In a similar way, openness is to be seen as the fundamental feature of the kinds, types, and models of revelation. They are not only dependent on the fact of revelation but must be conceived so that their openness to the reality of revelation can be secured. In other words, all these forms must be understood to some extent as dynamic, flexible, or changeable: they need to contain what is ultimate and respond to the ultimate character of the fact of revelation. In this respect, it is especially the notion of models of revelation that appears to be useful. Since models are flexible instruments, which are intrinsically open to amendments, the talk of models of revelation has the advantage of conceptual

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flexibility. Models are not merely ideal types used for certain theoretical purposes, but rather elastic and adaptable instruments of theoretical procedures. There is an inbuilt openness in a model rightly understood, which makes it useful in matters of revelation. As revelation cannot be dominated by experience in the sense other realms of reality can be, this inbuilt flexibility of models is very important. With this flexibility we can overcome the problem of the categorization of an experience which is not under the rule of the experiencing subject and thus can be termed “experience” only with important restrictions. In what follows, I use the expression “form” in a general sense covering kinds, types, and models. Speaking of “forms of revelation” allows me to remain on a general level, which is important at some points. My aim, however, is to establish models in the above sense for the phenomenon of revelation, models, that is, which are flexible theoretical constructs applicable to, and changeable in accordance with, the fact of revelation. Talking about models helps us see the most important forms of divine revelation. These forms, however, are interactive with each other and point to the problem of their common source and to the question of their relationship.

3. Forms of Revelation Let me first overview a number of classifications in which we do not yet deal with well-defined models of revelation; they refer to general kinds or types of revelation. Out of a number of authors who have published such classifications during the past hundred years, I have chosen here three scholars: Gerardus van der Leeuw, Friedrich Heiler, and René Latourelle.9 Van der Leeuw is one of the first authors who used phenomenology in the study of religion and his Phenomenology of Religion is a classic. Heiler’s book is a theologically and philosophically sophisticated work which applies ideal type phenomenology, but in a more complex and perhaps a more balanced way than van der Leeuw. René Latourelle’s book is central to the theology of revelation of the twentieth century; his thoroughgoing analyses make it possible to use his understandings in the present work. Gerardus van der Leeuw is among the authors who grounded their classifications most importantly on the cultural-historical formations of our Western tradition. In his view, the notion of “revelation” is meaningful merely in the sharp

9 Cf. Garrigou-Lagrange, De revelatione; John Baillie, The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought (New  York:  Columbia University Press, 1956); Mircea Eliade et  al. (eds), The Encyclopedia of Religion (New York:  Macmillan, 1987); George I. Mavrodes, Revelation in Religious Belief (Philadelphia:  Temple University Press, 1988); Keith Ward, Religion and Revelation:  A  Theology of Revelation in the World’s Religions (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1994); Paul Avis (ed.), Divine Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans, 1997); Richard Swinburne, Revelation:  From Metaphor to Analogy (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2007).

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opposition between God and the world, where revelation is a definite communication of God to the world. World and God are contrary to one another, and the communication of God is meant to heal this antagonism. God’s communication ensures the salvation of the world and leads it back to the community with God. Revelation, moreover, remains inaccessible for any theoretical investigation strictly speaking. Revelation is exactly that which is revealed exclusively in such a way that no human act can comprehend it except for it being made possible by revelation itself. Revelation remains encapsulated in revelation; a human mind cannot conceive of it in any other way than by receiving revelation. Revelation in this sense is revelation of revelation, which remains incomprehensible in any other way.10 Van der Leeuw also gives us a description of the structure of revelation. Revelation as God’s salvific communication is necessarily linked to a bearer in which revelation is expressed. Such bearer can be a natural or artificial physical object, the elements of nature, a plant, an animal, or a human person. Revelation becomes recognizable by a significant alteration in the natural makeup of its bearer: the objects change their nature, plants, animals or humans alter their natural appearance and behavior. Revelation is thus always closely connected to such a change, often to a change that appears surprising or even miraculous. The original and most common form of revelation is divination: telling the future or describing hidden things with respect to God’s salvific purposes. Divination as God’s miraculous communication can be mediated by a number of things, such as, for instance, a celestial phenomenon which is interpreted as a reference to God’s salvific purpose. For ancient societies, astral events were among the most important bearers of divine communication; not only unusual occurrences were understood in such a way, but even regular stellar movements and configurations. Such occurrences, regular or irregular, required a reliable interpreter possessing miraculous abilities, such as ecstasy, divination, or inspired interpretation. The interpreter and the interpreted belonged together; the sign opened up for the reader of the sign, and such a reader had competencies proportionate with the importance of the signs. According to this correlation, there was no revelation without an appropriate interpreter of revelation.11 This fact points to the most important form of revelation realized in human persons, according to van der Leeuw. Ecstatic states are ancient forms still observable in contemporary religious groups. God’s miraculous communication

10 Cf. Gerardus van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, trans. J. E. Turner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 573 (§ 86). As I point out below in Chapter 3, the first thinker to formulate this point—that revelation is essentially revelation of revelation—was F. W. J. Schelling. 11 On the story of the Star of Bethlehem, see Konradin Ferrari d’Occhieppo, Der Stern von Bethlehem in astronomischer Sicht:  Legende oder Tatsache? (Basel:  Brunnen-Verlag, 2003). See also Pseudo-Dionysius, Epistula VII (Patrologia Graeca. 3:1077b–1081c), where the natural sign of salvation is astronomical (cf. especially 1081a–c; letter VII is considered a late forgery by recent scholarship).

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radically changes human persons and this change is the expression of God’s revelation. While allowing a variety of forms of human change—such as ecstasies, inspirations, or illuminations—van der Leeuw considers the most central change of a human person the phenomenon of “conversion.” He defines “metanoia” as a human person’s total experience of salvation. This experience cannot be conceived in any other way than God’s revelation given to the person saved. God’s revelation is always self-revelation:  its content cannot be anything else than God himself. On a more general level, the existence of creation is itself God’s revelation, as God reveals himself already in creation with respect to salvation. The creation exists historically; created history is nevertheless the history of salvation, that is, revelational history—the history of divine revelation. The highest point of historical revelation is eschatological revelation in which God’s full and final self-disclosure is given.12 In sum, van der Leeuw distinguishes the following forms of revelation: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

The existence of the world History Divination Conversion Eschatological revelation

Van de Leeuw never offers an explicit list, but he appears to ignore the need for any other form of revelation. His understanding, as mentioned, is based on the original antagonism between God and the world, a thesis which he seems to presuppose rather than demonstrate. While van der Leeuw uses non-Western materials in his analysis of revelation only peripherally, it is obviously possible to enlarge the notion of revelation to other cultural and historical formations inasmuch as they show proximity to the primary sources of the notion of revelation. Such a procedure is carried out by Friedrich Heiler.13 According to his more articulate classification, we can speak of the following forms of revelation: 1. 2. 3. 4.

The creation of the world (in many religions) The existence of the world (in most ancient cultures known to us) The life and death of human and divine beings (in mythologies) Inner communication (in mystical experience)

12 Van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, pp. 565–90. Van der Leeuw does not mention that the paradigm of conversion in Western history is given in Plato’s description of the cave in Republic 514a–517a. On conversion, see more detail below in Chapter 5, section 3, e. 13 Friedrich Heiler, Erscheinungsformen und Wesen der Religion (Stuttgart:  W. Kohlhammer, 1961), pp. 486–600.

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5. Prophetic revelation (in Mesopotamia and related cultures, such as the Tanakh) 6. Eschatological revelation (most emphatically in the preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus) 7. Incarnation (especially in the theology of St. John’s Gospel) 8. Philosophy (in the view of some, e.g., Clement of Alexandria, Schelling, and Baader) 9. Infinite revelation (in the views of the Bahai, Mogul Akbar, and other syncretisms) 10. Universal revelation (in Schleiermacher or Max Müller) 11. Miracle (inside and outside of most known religions) 12. Salvation (in the axial religions, in accordance with Karl Jaspers’s view)14 Heiler’s classification is based on the data of the study of the history of religions, though the theological motive to develop an ultimate synthesis of religions becomes apparent in his analyses. In his view, the most fundamental type of revelation, which one can find in a number of religions, is the production of the universe (1). This production (either as specific or general creation) is the central act of information of the gods or God given to human beings. There are traditions, such Confucianism (2), in which there is no emphasis on the world as produced or created; the fact of the world is presupposed and what is strongly emphasized is the appropriate way of life by which happiness is attainable. In Daoism, the very existence of the world is also the communication of a higher power. Mythologies, theogonies, ancient stories of gods and heroes, the life and death of exceptional human beings are often considered the most important sources of revelation in a general sense (3). In a specific way the life of the Buddha, Jesus, or Muhammad fits into this category. Their lives as well as the lives of innumerable saints and holy or wise people have been typically considered the crucial expression of divine reality. Inner communication as revelation (4) is most importantly mystical illumination, such as provided by the daimonion of Socrates; a more intense version of this form of revelation can be found in Buddhism and in the so-called religions of light.15 Mystical experience is widespread in contemporary religions, but perhaps it is never so detailed and sophisticated as in Christianity. Prophetic revelation (5) is a form sharply different from the mystical one inasmuch as in the former divine reality does not reveal itself in the heart or mind of human persons, but rather in an external way (like the apparition of the Lord to Moses on the Mount Sinai) and by giving well-defined tasks to be fulfilled by the prophet. Prophets follow external patterns, which are given to them in visions and other prophetic experiences.

14 Heiler gives details of these forms of revelation, but never makes a list; the references after each form are only examples. 15 Cf. Plato’s Apology 32d. “Religions of light” are Zoroastrianism and the movements of the Sant Mat; the cult of light in Eastern Orthodox Christianity is a related phenomenon.

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Eschatological revelation (6) is related to prophetic revelation, but they can still be seen as different forms. The eschatological messenger can receive his revelation in a number of ways, though not necessarily in an external way; and what he declares is the complete revelation of God either in the imminent future (as in the case of John the Baptist) or right now in the present time (as in the case of Jesus of the Gospel of John). This latter type is related to form (7), in which revelation is given in the physical existence of a human being, who is simultaneously entirely human and entirely divine. Precursors of this type of revelation can be found throughout the history of religions; but nowhere with the concrete realism characteristic of the understanding of the gospels. Philosophy (8) was seen as divine communication (in this sense revelation) by Plato who considered it as “a gift from the gods to the mortal race whose value neither has been nor ever will be surpassed.”16 Some early Christian authors, such as Clement of Alexandria, had a similar understanding of philosophy as “a tutor to Christ.”17 After debates on Origen’s teachings, philosophy was rarely considered a “tutor” comparable in importance to the Old Testament. Still, in Western theology philosophy has held an important place as an instrument of theological reasoning. German Theology is a different chapter in this respect with its effort to amalgamate philosophy and theology. Forms (9) and (10) are results of the theological presupposition of Heiler. In his view, the religion of the future should be construed on the basis of the most essential elements of earlier religious formations, most importantly Christianity. Heiler praises the universalism of Max Müller, the founding father of the history of religion or “the science of religion,” who claimed that the sense of infinity is the single common element in all greater religions. Heiler identifies miracle and salvation as separate forms of revelation, but he also suggests that the highest form of revelation, realized eschatologically, is the synthesis of the main features of religions in a new kind of religion which is to serve humanity in the global age. There are other classifications of divine revelation which one may summarize here, but in view of the more general goals of the present work, let me review only one more author. The Theology of Revelation by René Latourelle is one of the finest scholarly works written on the topic of revelation during the twentieth century. Its main concern is a theological foundation of revelation, and a phenomenological

16 Plato, Timaeus 47b. 17 Cf. Gal. 3:24:  “So that the law was our custodian until Christ (παιδαγωγὸς εἰς Χριστόν) came, that we might be justified by faith.” In RSVCE εἰς is understood as temporal, while in older translations as final. Clement of Alexandria followed the latter interpretation and applied it to philosophy as well: “Perchance, too, philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily, till the Lord should call the Greeks. For this was a schoolmaster to bring ‘the Hellenic mind,’ as the law the Hebrews, ‘to Christ.’ Philosophy, therefore, was a preparation, paving the way for him who is perfected in Christ.” Clement of Alexandria, “Stromata,” in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (eds), The Ante-Nicene Fathers (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913), vol. II, chapter V, p. 305.

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approach (van der Leeuw) or the approach of the history of religions are quite far from its methodology. The forms Latourelle identifies, nevertheless, have a significance pointing beyond theology; they can be considered in a more general sense as forms of revelation. In the systematic chapter of his book, Latourelle describes the following forms: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Revelation as word Revelation as testimony Revelation as encounter Revelation as creation Revelation as history Revelation as incarnation Revelation as the light of faith Revelation as miracle Revelation as the Church Revelation as vision

Inasmuch as revelation is the verbal communication of God given in a number of ways, such as in the Scriptures, the traditions of the Church, the doctrinal teachings, or—in some cases—in the pronouncements of living persons, such as the pope, revelation is word (1). On a more general level, the fact that God speaks expresses the central importance of speech in communication. Speech occurs between two persons in the full sense of the word, that is, between two intelligent, free, and real subjects. Speaking is a meaningful, articulate expression of an intention of such an intelligent person in an objective way in order to reach a certain understanding of, and thereby a personal communion with, the other person. The human phenomenon of linguistic plurality, the variety of languages, and the almost infinitely complex ways in which human languages can operate highlight the central importance of speech. It is by no accident that a human language is incommensurably more complicated than any of the known languages in the realm of nonhuman animals. Thus, to say that divine revelation is “word,” that it is a kind of linguistic utterance, is to point out the dignity of human language as based on the highest form of communication conceivable for us. Testimony or witness (2) is first-order confirmation of a state of affairs. It is first order, because no other kind of confirmation can be more important; in testimony, one expresses in the most direct way the veracity of a state of affairs. Testimony can have a number of forms, such as linguistic utterance or the lack of an utterance; an act or the lack of an act; or more fundamentally the fact of something or the lack of such a fact. The testimony of a witness in a criminal case may be decisive; the mere appearance of a person at a certain place and a certain time can be seen as confirmation; the lack of a fact, an act, or an utterance may express again a definitive testimony in certain cases. God’s testimony is given to the world in the most direct way of a fact—in the very fact of the existence of the world, but also in the fact of the history of salvation leading to the reunion of God and the world. This reunion is either prefigured

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or fulfilled in the encounter (3)  between the revealer and the receiver of revelation. An encounter, on the general level, is the actualization of a meaningful relation between two persons; such an encounter is either the beginning or the fulfillment of this relationship. As a beginning, an encounter entails invitation for a free, fulfilling, personal partnership; as a fulfillment, an encounter actualizes the potency of such a partnership. Both as a beginning and as a fulfillment, encounter is revelation of freedom, love, partnership both for the revealer and the receiver of revelation. The production of the universe is the fundamental revelational fact (4). Th is fact is an original event. This latter, inasmuch as it logically and chronologically precedes human subjectivity, may not be termed intentional in the narrow sense. Inasmuch as, however, “intentional” cannot be limited to particular human intentions, but denotes the cause of the well-structured possibility of such intentions, this cause can also be called intentional in a fundamental sense. In this sense, the original event is intentional. As an intentional event of original production, it is called creation; it expresses the creating event’s character qua creating; and it hides the same event’s other features not expressed in the act of creation. If one asks for the cause of the production of the universe, one may not be able to formulate an immediately enlightening answer. So much can be said, however, that creation is first and foremost the production of an inexhaustible richness, a complicated and delicate variety of structures and contents. The more one delves into this richness, the more one feels that the motive behind creation can be described as a desire to share this richness in as many ways as possible. In other words, the general cause of revelation in creation is precisely what is traditionally referred to as love, not in the limited, psychological sense we normally use this word, but in an encompassing sense which is proportionate to the cause producing the universe. History (5)  is the expression of the fact that the universe was created in the perspective of its meaningful development. Inasmuch as this development is expressed above all in the existence and development of human persons and their communities, history is understood not merely cosmologically or biologically, but more centrally in an anthropological, personal, and interpersonal sense. Anthropological history, or the history of human persons cannot be isolated from the general historical framework of the universe; it is not only that the history of the universe is expressed meaningfully in human history, but the history of persons may involve persons other than human persons. History as revelation refers to the fact that the development of the universe is considered in the framework of the following factors: (1) The universe is produced by an intentional cause; (2) the universe is produced with respect to the possibility of a physical, mental, and spiritual fulfillment; (3) the world’s present state is determined by alienation, grounded in the freedom of persons, in the perspective of fulfillment; (4) still, universal fulfillment is realized in the development of the history of the universe, especially in the history of persons and their communities; (5) this history has the phases of alienation and reconciliation, sustained and completed by the salvific initiative of the original cause of the universe.

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Revelation as incarnation (6) seems to be uncomplicated in the theological perspective. Here however we apply the approach of a radical theory of revelation, which makes the matter more intricate. At the end of the Chapter 1, I argued for the unity of God’s ordinary and extraordinary communication embodied in one empirical person; in this approach, the incarnation of the person is entailed. God’s communication, centrally expressed, becomes a fact in an empirically concrete human person. Inductively, God’s revelation can be realized on the basis of the existence of such a person; the contents of revelation are given, moreover, in the existence, that is, in the life and death of such a person. This form of revelation is obviously central; since what is central to our experience is always a fact, and the existence of a person is the highest form of a fact. In our world, persons are the richest and most complete facts accessible for us; communities of persons, that is, societies or organized groups of people, centrally presuppose personal existence and are contingent on the facts of persons. The notion of “incarnation,” however, is obviously rooted in the main structures of ancient cosmology, in which the earth was considered “carnal,” bodily, while the sky either bodiless or close to being so (supposing the existence of a fine kind of matter, Aristotle’s “quintessence” or ether). “Incarnation” referred to the appearance of a heavenly or etheric person (a god or a star) in a rough material form, in a corruptible human body. Such an incarnation was always a certain kind of epiphany, the appearance of a divine being with a salvific purpose, which supported inferior human beings to reach their specific fulfillment. Revelation as incarnation inherits some traces of this ancient belief, but develops it into a more complete form. God’s communication becomes totally expressed in the fact of an existing human person, in Christ, with the special emphasis on the personhood of this person. Latourelle’s understanding of revelation “as the light of faith” (7) refers to the intellectual form of divine revelation. Revelation is above all a fact; but to every fact there belongs an understanding of the fact, the intellectual milieu, or—in the original Scholastic sense—intentionality. Fact and intention are correlative; a fact is always in the context of an intention, an understanding, and the intention or understanding is always centered on a fact. Divine revelation as a fact, therefore, entails divine revelation as intention or understanding. The “conception” of the fact, as the expression succinctly points out, is at the same time about conceiving as the reception of a cause and about conceiving as understanding. Revelation as light of faith expresses the revelational force of faith—this first-order form of knowledge— for the rest of the intellectual faculties. In accordance with the ancient, ophthalmocentric understanding, the human mind is comparable to the eye: as the eye needs light to see, so the mind needs intellectual light to understand. According to Augustine, there is no proper understanding without proper illumination, that is, without an illuminative revelation of God.18 On a more general level we could say that understanding is illumination in some way; knowledge as true belief is the result of divine illumination in accordance with a traditional, Neo-Platonic 18 “In the passage from De Trinitate quoted above, Augustine identifies this contemplation or illumination (inluminatio) with participatio verbi, the participation in the Word

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epistemology inherited by later theories of knowledge. In this perspective, not merely individual grasps of truth are illuminations, but the human mind’s aptitude to grasp truth in general is the expression of the fact that God’s illumination permeates the human mind; the fundamental activity of the human mind is the result of illumination. This illumination becomes revelation in a more concrete sense, however, merely in connection with the specific fact of incarnation. Since I have briefly described the problem of miracle (8) above,19 let me point out merely the following. Revelation as a miracle points out two facts of exceptional importance: the fact of the contingency of the world, and the fact of a sign in the world pointing beyond the world. The contingency of the world can be understood minimally as the changing character of the world’s present state; the world is in a universal process of change, and the present state is only a phase in this process. If however the process is understood as a part of the contingency of the world, there is no possible phase of this process which overcomes the world’s contingency. In terms of cosmology, the world’s contingency cannot be called into question, given the understanding of the universe as a process. The question merely is that whether we can meaningfully speak of an absolute on which the world is contingent. I agree that in terms of relevant cosmology to speak of an absolute ground of the physical universe is problematic, but perhaps there are ways in which we can still maintain such an understanding. The relevance of a miracle in this context is apparent. A miracle is a sign in the world pointing beyond the framework of the contingency of the world. A sign always entails a pointing-beyond; a sign refers to something which it is the sign of. These letters in this text refer to words, these words to meanings, which express my intentions with this chapter. A miracle, precisely, is the sign which refers to what is not contingent. A miracle is by definition that which cannot happen under the normal, that is, contingent, conditions of the world. A miracle is thus the sign of the non-contingent or the absolute. Inasmuch as such a sign cannot be produced by what is contingent, a miracle is the expression, communication, or revelation of the absolute. Such a sign can be the world itself. More importantly, such a sign is always a fact, and the full fact, as we saw, is a person. The community of persons constituting a sign in the sense of the miracle is called “Church” (9). The Church is the community of saved persons, that is, persons that have become signs in the world pointing to the absolute over and beyond the contingent; more generally, the Church is the community of persons that are called to become such signs. Moreover, the Church is a sign as well, inasmuch it is considered personal; we often speak of her children. The sign as a fact in the world—be it individual or communal, a physical or mental, an occurrence, or a full fact of an exceptional personality—is a referent, as we just saw, which correlates with what is thereby referred to (10).

that should be ours as beings created in and through the Word” (Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, p. 168). 19 Cf. Chapter 1, section 9 above.

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What is referred to by the referent is the absolute source or ground of the world, God, in the perspective of the completion of the universal process of contingency. Again, the term for this fulfillment, vision or beatific vision, is of Platonic origin. Plato emphatically writes in the Symposium that the highest purpose of human beings should be the search for the vision of beauty itself.20 This highest vision is a possibility even on the level of the Platonic narrative. In Christianity, beatific vision is characteristic of the ultimate fulfillment of a person in the community with God; in such a fulfillment, God’s full revelation is given, for the person is allowed into the community of God’s divine persons. Revelation as a miracle or a sign enhances this ultimate fulfillment for human persons, for the Church, and for the entire world.

4. From Forms to Models Let me summarize the results of the above considerations. We can speak of forms of revelation in a general sense, or we can develop an apparently satisfying list of such forms on the basis of the history of religions or of conceptual analysis. Or again we can accurately create a list of such forms by attempting to offer an exhaustive systematization. In all these cases, however, the forms we are dealing with are not developed into models. Van der Leeuw forms are rather vague; Heiler’s list is of well-defined types; and Latourelle’s register is a systematic description of the forms of revelation from the theological point of view. Latourelle’s forms, if interpreted on a general level, are close to what I term “models.” Many of these forms are in fact central to other religious formations and all of them can be understood with a sufficient flexibility. In a different section of his book, Latourelle even summarizes the forms of revelation as “aspects” of revelation in a simplified list. Accordingly, there are four aspects of divine revelation: (1) revelation as divine action; (2) revelation as history; (3) revelation as knowledge; and (4) revelation as encounter.21 Latourelle suggests that the fourfold structure of revelation implies divine and human activity, intentionality, and fact. In this structure, encounter, that is, the fact of revelation, stands in the center; this fact is put into the context of intentionality (in the sense of knowledge, i.e., a referent to the fact), and realized in two sorts of activity, divine and human. The particular aspects of this structure are indeed close to what I term a model. Models are flexible and changeable to some extent and they are open to the empirical basis they are applied to. If we consider

20 “But how would it be, in our view, she said, if someone got to see the Beautiful itself [αὐτὸ τὸ καλὸν ἰδεῖν,] absolute, pure, unmixed, not polluted by human flesh or colors or any other great nonsense of mortality, but if he could see the divine Beauty itself in its one form?” See Symposium 211e–212a, in Plato, The Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), p. 494. 21 Latourelle, Theology of Revelation, p. 443.

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revelation as divine action, human action, intentionality (knowledge), and as a fact, then we speak of models of revelation applicable in a number of ways. Models are “imagined mental constructs invented to account for observed phenomena” and are used “to develop a theory which in some sense explains the phenomena.” Each model suggests a possible and consistent way of thinking about a certain set of problems, but it in no way guarantees the validity of the hypotheses it suggests.22

In my analysis of kinds and types I suggested above that types are well-defined theoretical forms of high-level abstraction. Accordingly, ideal types are close to the models Dulles uses, but models are more explicitly theoretical tools. We cannot say however that models have no foundation in the things themselves; they are abstracted from experience and constructed as structures of relevant experiences in order to interpret further experiences of similar kind. What we need to emphasize again is the flexibility and the openness of a model, its changeability in face of the experience. If models are applied to the realm of divine revelation, this flexibility is especially important; still, even the most flexible model can easily become useless in view of new kinds of experience. For instance, while traditional accounts of revelation in Hellenistic Christianity list the beatific vision as the fullness of revelation, it would be a mistake to pretend that this form of revelation is a well-defined type or a model. To put it briefly, there is no available experience relevant to the construction of a model “beatific vision.” The most I can say from the point of view of a radical theory of revelation is that the traditional category of the beatific vision—as is preserved in the Church’s traditions—can be used as a term referring to the fullness of revelation. Our proleptic perception of this form may prove entirely false in view of real experience; if we understand it as a model, its model character is different from, say, the model of knowledge of revelation, since such knowledge is more easily accessible for average human beings. The “model” of the fulfillment of divine revelation is the most flexible one; other models, however, must be construed with a high degree of flexibility. Still, models may be called well defined on the basis of tradition and experience. Dulles offers a list of models not very far from the aspects of revelation which Latourelle describes: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Revelation as doctrine Revelation as history Revelation as inner experience Revelation as dialectical presence Revelation as new awareness23

22 Avery Dulles, Models of Revelation (New York: Orbis, 1992), pp. 30–2. 23 Dulles, Models of Revelation, pp. 27–8.

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Accordingly, revelation is doctrinal (1)  inasmuch as it is conceived of as a teaching of God offered in well-defined propositions, which are expressed in clear and plain sentences. Even if propositions are not identical with sentences—for a proposition as a meaning structure may be expressed in a number of different languages and sentences—propositions must be sufficiently clear, that is to say, they have to have a rational form, though not necessarily a rational content. A  doctrine may be mysterious or enigmatic in its contents, but this feature also must be expressed in rational sentences. The understanding of revelation as history (2) appeared in a definite form relatively late in Catholic theology, even if Catholic theology offered a deep sense of historicity, for instance, in the works of St. Augustine.24 The Protestant arguments about the historical character of God’s revelation were not only based on the earlier conception of the history of salvation, but offered in convincing ways an updated version of the historical understanding of the process of revelation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As inner experience (3), revelation is a privileged interior experience of grace or communion with God. This model refers to mystical experiences variations of which can be found in most of the religious formations of the world; Karl Rahner calls the ubiquitous and mysterious experience of communion with God “transcendental revelation.” It is important to note that Dulles’s third model of revelation is an interpretation of the earlier notion of private revelation as explained, for instance, in the work of Tanquerey. Revelation has the form of “dialectical presence” (4) especially for Karl Barth and his followers. Dialectical presence is God’s authoritative, ultimate, and nonreducible self-disclosure in Christ, which cannot be grasped either in doctrines or in mystical experience; it is a paradoxical yet fundamental self-communication of God as simultaneously present and absent at the same time and from the same point of view. Proponents of this model emphasize, however, the person of Jesus Christ as the core of dialectical revelation. Revelation becomes salvific if we give ourselves unconditionally to the powers of this mysterious, salvific, yet paradoxical fact of God. Revelation as new awareness (5) is perhaps the model which is the most difficult to identify. It is a cognitive model, for it speaks about the human mind’s connection to God; it is, however, objective as it is God’s act which “enlarges” or universalizes the human mind into the communion with God’s mind. The factual expression of this new awareness is a new community in which recipients of revelation as new awareness gather; they form a new kind of community with new tasks, personal and social perspectives. The model of new awareness can evolve into a

24 Augustine’s The City of God was indeed the first overall consideration of the historical dimension of revelation in Western theology—inspired by the tragic fall of Rome in 410 ad—while it avoided a thoroughgoing investigation of a unified meaning of divine revelation.

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new praxis inspired, led, and sustained by revelation. Still, the main emphasis is on the consciousness of the recipients of revelation. An overview of these models shows that three are of a cognitive kind: revelation as doctrine, inner experience, and new awareness. The remaining two forms are of a factual kind: revelation as history and dialectical presence. The cognitive kinds may be conceived of as referring to one another, since doctrinal revelation is the propositional form of a direct or indirect experience. Inner experience is direct just as subjective mystical experiences are; new awareness is direct as well, though in the different sense of an entirely changed consciousness. The recipient of revelation as new awareness sees God’s self-disclosure not merely in his or her own inner life, but in a community the members of which share a common consciousness; they share common tasks, objectives, goals in the world and in God. I suspect, however, that recipients of new awareness have inner experience in the subjective sense, and that recipients of mystical experiences would rarely say that these experiences refer merely to one’s psychologically inner life; they attribute a nonpsychological objectivity to their experiences. The factual models are also related to one another in an intrinsic sense: God’s dialectical presence is focused on the fact of the person of Christ; it is expressed in factual history. The person of Christ cannot be conceived of without the story of the gospels, since the figure of Christ is identical with his life and death, incarnation, and resurrection. Christ is God in himself and in history at the same time. In a similar manner it seems that the forms of revelation investigated by Latourelle can be reduced to more basic forms. Revelation as word (1), as testimony (2), as encounter (3), as the light of faith (7), and as vision (10) are cognitive kinds. Word and testimony can be God’s act or a human act; they can be oral, mental, written, or expressed in other forms; they can involve one or more persons; still, they are of a cognitive kind. Perhaps revelation as encounter (3) may be different in this respect, since an encounter can happen on various levels from the physical to the experiential; thus form (3) can also be listed among factual kinds of revelation. The other kinds are factual, such as revelation as creation, history, incarnation, miracle, and Church. Revelation as history and as Church entails cognitive features, but fundamentally they are of a factual kind. Similarly, basic kinds can be discovered in the list of Heiler and van der Leeuw. Factual and cognitive revelations are then the two main forms which comprise all the other forms. What is the exact nature of the two forms in question? Are they general forms, kinds, types, or perhaps models? They are kinds in a general sense, because they refer to a spontaneous emergence of their corresponding groups in the pools considered. They can be construed as types on the basis of a more rigorous definition. And they can be understood as models if we construe them in accordance with experience. Revelation as fact expresses always an accomplishment; revelation as cognition or experience, however, merely refers to a factual accomplishment. This reference can happen either a priori or a posteriori, either as a prophetic reference pointing forward or as a kind of “pointing back” to a previous fact, such as historical events which build a tradition. Mystical experience as a process is never accomplished; it points to a fundamental reality,

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God, or the absolute. Factual revelation, however, possesses a certain fullness or perfection; a miracle, the existence of the universe, or the existence of a person are accomplished facts in their own ways. In other ways—as a message, as the history of salvation, or as the active word of God—they are dynamic, that is, they are in the making; cognition is the central form of being in a process. Revelation as fact and revelation as cognition are related to each other; ontologically, fact precedes cognition; epistemologically, cognition precedes fact. Cognition points to its fulfillment as a fact; fact points to the possibility of its being conceived in a cognitive way. As models, factual and cognitive revelation are seen as theoretical forms, ideal types flexible enough to apply them on the most diverse data of experience; their concrete meanings change to some extent depending on the context in which they are applied. Fact and cognition can be conceived of as being carried out by somebody, such as God; they can be seen as God’s actions. However, God is a fact in the most appropriate sense: he is pure actuality, absolute accomplishment. In this accomplishment, fact and cognition absolutely coincide. One may add that God as absolute accomplishment or perfection is perhaps more than a mere fact; he is infinite, inconceivable, and ineffable—but precisely that is expressed in that God is absolute accomplishment. Fact and cognition are, then, two basic dimensions of God, two forms of God’s self-communication; two basic models, which can be used in a proper understanding of divine revelation. I do not forget that the forms and models I have considered are based on empirical research; none of the authors quoted above presented a purely speculative list of the forms of revelation, but used historical sources of theology and the history of religions. Nevertheless, in the perspective of a radical theory of revelation, when we investigate the conditions of possibility of the forms of revelation, it is not only allowable but even indispensable to be more speculative. Models of revelation as fact and cognition may result not merely from the forms of revelation I have analyzed, but also from a philosophical consideration; fact and the cognition of fact are basic aspects of our reality. In a similar perspective I offer some more models of revelation. The nature of the models I  am offering here is different, however, from the models we know in other authors. They usually use simple forms of revelation. Revelation as doctrine, history, experience, dialectical presence, new awareness, and so on are simple categories. There is only one factor in each, though the content of this factor is comprehensive. Revelation as doctrine is a one factor model, but what doctrine is or how a proposition can be the bearer of the mystery of God are intricate questions. This can be clearly seen in the model of dialectical presence. The simple expression hides a very complex meaning. This shows that a one factor model can express only with difficulties the richness of revelation either in its various forms or in the relationship among such forms. Revelation is ultimately one. The various models help us see this fundamental characteristic of revelation, inasmuch as these models have only one factor, such as doctrine or experience. Moreover, it is difficult to perceive the richness of the unity of revelation just by the static nature of one factor models. When I defined

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above the two fundamental forms of revelation, fact and cognition, I pointed out that they form a correlation. They do not only hang together, but form in a certain way a dynamic and structured unity. A fact points to its cognition, the cognition points to its fact—this is a correlative and dynamic relationship which is lacking in the one factor models of most of the authors dealing with our problems. Fact and cognition form ultimately one dynamic model of revelation, and we can identify further such models. Let me propose a list of such dynamic or complex models as opposed to the simple or one factor models: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Revelation as fact and cognition Revelation as creation and salvation Revelation as incarnation and resurrection Revelation as word and deed Revelation as natural and supernatural Revelation as experience and reality Revelation as private and public Revelation as person and community Revelation as part and whole Revelation as something and nothing.

A cursory glance at this list may convince the reader that there is something deeply natural in connecting such forms of revelation as creation and salvation, word and deed, part and whole, or person and community. In the perspective of sufficient philosophical and theological knowledge they clearly belong together, so much so that one must wonder why analyzers of the forms of revelation did not see earlier the dynamic nature of such forms and their contents. Just as fact and cognition taken together define a dynamic whole, in which the factors refer to each other and express thereby divine revelation in a more complex way, revelation as creation and salvation (2) has a similar character. Creation can be considered as a model in itself, but creation and salvation are intimately intertwined. What is “creation”? Here again we are accustomed to using the term in a sense which is quite different from the original. Today we often speak of the creation of an industrial project, a certain style in clothing, or a work of art. In the original theological vocabulary, however, “creation” referred to the personal production of the universe out of “nothing,” that is, not from some primeval matter.25

25 The Greek theological notion of “creation,” “ποίησις” refers simply to the process of making something out of something (as in the Greek text of Gen. 1:1). Not even the Hebrew ‫ בּ ָָרא‬had the meaning of “creatio ex nihilo,” the creation out of nothing as defined by the later Christian doctrine. Even if the theological notion of “creation” bears the effects of the “poetic” meaning of the Greek language, the content of the theological notion is different: it wants to emphasize that the creation is made purely by God and, at the same time, still not of God; the world is not made of some primal matter independent of God, and it is not

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The theological thesis that the creation (as a noun) is “good” has suggested that the production of the universe was such that the universe was able to reach its highest aim, the communion with God. The failure of attaining this aim did not originate in the cause of the universe, but in the freedom of the persons central to the universe. Free deviation from the intended purpose is the core message of the biblical narrative of creation. Because freedom is central to creation and it can lead to disarray, “salvation” as the correction of the free deviation is correlative to “creation.” “Salvation” means in this context the solution of the catastrophic problems caused by the erroneous decisions of free persons. God’s salvific intervention saves the universe from total collapse and restores the possibility of attaining its original goal in a new form. In this approach, the initial structure of the world is simultaneously perfectible and corruptible; freedom can lead to corruption, but under the influence of salvific grace it can be restored to a new perfection. Thus, creation and salvation as revelations of God form an interconnected, dynamic unity; their full meaning is shown precisely in their correlative interaction. The central message of this correlation points to a never exhaustible goodness of the creating and personal power of the universe, a goodness or love which binds creation and salvation together in a perpetual community. Revelation as incarnation and resurrection (3) expresses the dynamism given in the unity of two salvific events. In an historical perspective, the notion of “incarnation,” as I pointed out, originates in the epiphany religions of the Middle East, while in Judaism the notion of divine incarnation in a human form is initially fairly improbable.26 In Christianity the notion reaches a new richness and realism. “Incarnation” in the original sense—as the expression itself shows—presupposes a certain level of immateriality of God conceived in the framework of Hellenistic cosmology. Humans are bound to bodies, God is not; the soul is the captain of the body as a “small ship,” God is the captain of the universe as a “big ship.” God may have a kind of body (made out of some fine substance), but it is more probable that he does not have one; he is nevertheless able to assume one or more bodies. If God or the gods assume material bodies—as they often do in many religious traditions—they dishonor themselves to some extent; they submerge in a lower kind of existence closer to the humble forms of the “earth” and farther from the shiny spheres of the heavens. If it is dishonoring for God to assume a body, then it is also dishonoring for human beings, at least in the framework of Hellenistic ideas, to exist in crudely material bodies. Christianity—while applying the Hellenistic notion of incarnation in the context of Judaism—has radically changed this structure: Incarnation is self-emptying

made “of ” God either. However, it may be misleading to refer to “nothing” in the notion of creation as if “nothing” was a metaphysical substance of some inconceivable nature. 26 There are references, however, to some materialization of God in the Tanakh, for example, the three angels appearing to Abraham, the “burning bush” in which the Lord speaks to Moses, the widespread anthropomorphisms, and so on. Still, the clear statement to the effect that God becomes flesh is plainly foreign to the Tanakh.

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(kenosis), but having a material body is not something base in itself; it is not the consequence of the fall of the first humans, because they also existed in a human body. The reason why the existence of material bodies and the material universe are not to be dismissed is not only their original “goodness” as a potential for higher-level community with God; creation is called to receive salvation, a new life granted precisely in a new birth of bodies from the earth, as already Plato suggests.27 In resurrection, material reality, bodily nature in particular, attains a completely new form prefigured in the resurrection of Christ, in his glorious body. Christianity maintains some traces of an anti-material attitude of some surrounding traditions, but it revises and changes the contents. St. Paul’s theology shows that clearly; as his formulations suggest (for instance, the condemnatory use of “sarkikos” (σάρκικός), “carnal,” e.g., Rom 7:14), existence in the corrupted human body is at least ambivalent, but there is a transformed, glorious body, one which Christians are invited to assume in Christ as citizens of heaven.28 Incarnation is thus connected to the glory of resurrection, and while bodily existence leads to death, God’s power proves to be greater than death and gives a new life to the human body. Destruction exists in view of a final renewal; death exists by virtue of resurrection. God’s revelation as incarnation and resurrection expresses this dynamic relationship between death and life, corruptible and incorruptible natures.29 Revelation as word and deed (4) first recalls that the word is God’s verbal communication; it can be heard not only externally, but internally or mentally as well, and it can be expressed in behavior, gestures, or writing, such as a sacred scripture. God’s word, however, is fundamentally different from a human word in that God’s word is efficacious; it is a creating word. God’s word produces the universe and it gives a new life in salvation to the faithful. Word, in this view, is most intimately connected to action; divine word is simultaneously divine deed. On the level of revelation, word effects deed and deed originates in word; they belong to one another. If we perceive God’s word without its immediate effects, it is due to the temporal perspective in which essential unities appear only as sets of distinct elements. This kind of perception is a consequence of our freedom that needs a certain space to make a decision. In this space, a human person is motivated to act in accordance with the word; he or she is motivated to reach a decision, to express the word in various ways, to conduct a certain way of life, or to contribute to the reception of revelation by other persons and communities of persons. While in God word and deed strictly correspond to each other, in the human realm this

27 Plato, Statesman 273e. 28 “But our commonwealth [πολίτευμα , citizenship, government] is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself.” (Phil. 3:20–21) 29 Cf. 1 Cor. 15:32. Also in Phil. 3:10 where “the power of his resurrection” is bound to sharing “his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.”

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correspondence is a task given to the recipients of revelation. In this perspective, genuine action is the realization of God’s word; history as the concatenation of actions of persons and communities is, similarly, the free realization of God’s revelation as word. The dynamic model of revelation as a natural and supernatural event (5), as an ordinary event and as a miracle underlines again the dynamic togetherness of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the natural and the supernatural. In the case of a miracle, the miraculous feature of an occurrence must be clearly opposed to ordinary events in the world, otherwise the very meaning of a miracle gets lost. But such an approach exaggerates the factually existing difference and opposition between God and the world. From a limited perspective it is legitimate to differentiate them, but if we zoom in too obsessively on the differences, we lose sight of the whole picture. In God’s mind, so to say, creation and salvation, the natural and the supernatural belong together; God is omniscient and omnipotent.30 A similar relationship is expressed theologically in the doctrine of the two natures of Christ: they are both inseparable and unmingled. We can even say that Christ’s human nature strictly refers to his divine nature and vice versa, as the doctrine of the doctrine of communicatio idiomatum teaches.31 In this way we can say that the natural and the supernatural refer to one another; an ordinary event is not merely a passive condition of possibility of a miracle, but an active reference to the possibility of a miracle. A miracle, however, is embedded in a context of natural events. The sign, which is the essential expression of a miracle, has a natural material, such as the chemistry of a sick human body, and it has a supernatural element expressed in the natural context, such as the sudden healing of the sickness. The two factors, the natural and the supernatural, belong strictly together, refer to one another, and form a dynamic unity in the real existence of the sign. In a similar fashion, it is possible to speak of a dynamic model of revelation as experience and reality (6). A model of revelation based merely on “experience”

30 This point will return in this work as it stands in the center of many similar theological and philosophical discussions: if God is absolute, then what is relative is both absolutely distant from, and absolutely close to, the absolute. To emphasize either side is to cherish an unjustifiable, one-sided notion of the absolute—an idol instead of God. Similarly, the natural-supernatural divide should not be overemphasized to the detriment of their nonproportional togetherness. Otherwise, again, a one-sided view of reality emerges. To say however that the emphasis on the togetherness or dynamic unity of the natural and the supernatural, the absolute and the relative, leads to some sort of “pantheism” is, while not groundless, still rooted in an objectified notion of God. God is, to quote Augustine, summo meo superior—but at the same time intimo meo interior. 31 “Communio” and “communicatio idiomatum”—the mutual sharing of properties— are equally used to translate the original ἡ ἀντίδοσις τῶν ἰδιωμάτων. As to the precise content of the expression, see Mike Higton’s article “Communicatio idiomatum,” in Ian McFarland et  al. (eds), The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 108–109.

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often forgets that religious experiences do not appear to its subjects as detached from objectivity, as merely “subjective.” On the contrary, such experiences show a unique character of realness and objectivity, though the subject may critically reflect on the authenticity of such experiences. In the process of experience, however, experience is reality. Revelation as experience is revelation as reality. The two factors of this model stand in correlation to one another; experience is a reference to reality and vice versa. The dynamic reciprocity, the Ineinandersein of these complex models is particularly well expressed here, while in everyday experiences we often face the same phenomenon: whatever we experience we take it as reality or at least a reference to reality; and reality may appear here either as objectively accessible or just as the reality of the experience itself.32 For even if I misperceive something, the experience of this misperception is not a misperception; experience as experience is real. In mystical experiences, this subjective realness goes hand in hand with the conviction of the experiencing subject that his or her experience discloses reality. Revelation as experience thus entails revelation as reality, and the latter involves experience either as a possibility or as an actuality. It is important in the understanding of the nature of complex models of revelation that their factors stand in such a dynamic and inclusive relationship to one another. Revelation as private and public (7) expresses an interesting relationship which borders on a paradox. Revelation is public in its most important definition, since it is the universal expression of God’s salvific plan for every human being and the entire universe. The central form of revelation, the declaration of God’s message, is realized publicly, in the midst of a community, in a language that is understandable for many and translatable to every other human language. Revelation is public: “I have spoken openly to the world . . . I have said nothing secretly” (Jn 18:20). Revelation, moreover, has a rational form, which can be conceived of by all rational persons on a sufficient level to attain an appropriate understanding as basis of a corresponding will and action. Still, revelation is personal communication, implying personal intimacy. This intimacy is similar to the closeness of friends or spouses to one another. In both cases, there is a certain level of exclusivity, which ensures the genuinely personal character of the relationship. In friendship and

32 The term Ineinandersein in contemporary philosophy goes back to Edmund Husserl’s notion of intersubjectivity and describes the character of intersubjectivity as an intricate relation of the subjects permeating one another both ontologically and intentionally. Maurice Merleau-Ponty borrowed and used the expression in its German form and thus created a technical term, especially characteristic of his thought, in which various aspects of reality influence and determine each other in such a way that “reality” is to be seen as this complex and dynamic system of mutual determination. For more details, see Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, p. 76; and Dermot Moran’s chapter Ineinandersein and L’interlacs in:  Thomas Szanto and Dermot Moran (eds), The Phenomenology of Sociality: Discovering the “We” (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 107–27. As I repeatedly use Ineinandersein in this volume, I stress here its importance in a proper understanding of the relationship between unity and plurality in the godhead.

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love, we can see the interesting paradox of forms of communication essentially private: they are expressions of love and friendship, that is, they are public in this sense, yet they are to be kept private in order to guard their intimate nature. In a similar way, divine revelation unites intimacy and openness, the private and the public. They are not to be confused: there are private revelations intended for individuals and to some extent for smaller communities; and there is public revelation intended in principle for everyone, everywhere, and at all times. Still, the genuine recipient of public revelation develops a private (personal or intimate) relationship with the revealer. In this sense, public revelation becomes private, intimate, personal. Religiousness cannot be genuine without such personal features; otherwise it becomes external, superficial, ineffective, even immoral. On the other hand, private revelation is the possibility of public revelation, as, for instance, the story of the disciples of Jesus shows, where some of the central messages are given privately or in a closed circle of disciples. Thus, private and public revelation form a correlative unity and as such it is a complex model of divine revelation. Revelation as person and community (8): Revelation can be personal not only in the sense that it is expressed in the intimate relationship between the revealer and the receiver, but in the more concrete sense of being realized in the very existence of a real person. As I pointed out above, the existence of a person is actually the central form of divine revelation.33 We can formulate a similar thesis to the effect that divine revelation is centrally addressed to persons in such a way that the person himself or herself becomes the fact of revelation. Does this mean that a community of persons cannot be the addressee or the bearer of divine revelation? We know at least from the history of religions that certain communities—a group of disciples, a circle of followers, a people of unusual self-understanding, or even whole cultures—may consider themselves as collective bearers of divine revelation. Such communities do not exclude individuals as bearers of revelation, but understand their message as something to be realized in the existence of the given community. This model is in some ways similar to the model of revelation as private and public; in the latter case, however, we have a different perspective. In the model of private and public revelation, the mode of receiving revelation is construed on the basis of a person; in the model of revelation as individual and collective, the mode of revelation is construed as reciprocally present both in the community and its members. Individual persons cannot be excluded from the circle of the receivers of revelation in the latter model either; by virtue of their reception of revelation, it is precisely their community which receives revelation. However, it can happen that a community suddenly acquires the conviction that it is the bearer of revelation just as a community; in such cases, the priority of the members of the community as receivers of revelation is transferred to the consciousness of the community as the receiver of revelation.

33 Cf. the existential condition of possibility of revelation above in Chapter 1.

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Moreover, revelation as a real person or as being addressed to a real person entails revelation as a community or as being addressed to a community. Person and community stand in correlation; there is no person outside the community, and no community without persons. Historically, polytheism is an expression of a similar truth in a mythological form: divine beings are numerous and they live in a hierarchically arranged community with each other. Divine beings disclose themselves both as individuals and as a community. Similarly, human beings are receivers of revelation both as persons and as a community. The Trinitarian doctrine involves a higher level recognition and a new formulation of the fact of the mutual relationship of person and community in the theological sense. The core of revelation is Jesus Christ; but his existence is expressed in the community of the disciples, the Church. The Church is bearer of revelation, a “mysterion,” a sacrament: a sign which conveys and realizes divine revelation.34 Individuals are born into communities and instructed to recognize and realize revelation individually; and communities are instructed to become bearers and expressions of revelation through the individuals as community members. Here again we can observe the dynamism of a complex model, with an almost inexhaustible philosophical and theological richness. Revelation can have a number of forms, as we have seen, and it can have various contents too. These contents are rarely universal in the first instance; very often they are of particular relations, facts, histories, tasks, or objectives. Revelation as part and whole (9) can be construed precisely on the basis of this initial concreteness of revelation. The partial nature of revelation is given already in the fact that it is bound to a certain language, an age, an historical period, or a culture. Most importantly we can observe that many religious formations have preserved the written form of revelation in languages already extinct or essentially modified during the course of time. Some words have become difficult to understand, even if there are modern translations of them. Other words have come to mean something different from their original meaning; and overarching conceptions, attitudes, even worldviews may have greatly changed since the time revelation was put into words for the first time. The partial nature of revelation is just obvious in most of these cases. For beyond the written forms, certain formulas presuppose conceptual schemas quite difficult to understand today, as, for instance, the Greek philosophical vocabulary of the Christological dogmas. Still, this concreteness refers to the totality of revelation in a number of ways: old languages are translated into new ones, and conceptual schemas are modernized, reinterpreted from time to time, criticized, and reformulated. Philosophical and theological works put partial information into a systematic context. The central message of revelation contains the explicit imperative of a universal distribution. Most importantly revelation as

34 “Μυστήριον” occurs twenty-seven times in the New Testament. RSVCE often translates it as “secret,” but a few times as “mystery.” The Vulgate translation offers “sacramentum.” It was on the basis of the biblical usage, especially Eph. 1:9, that early terminology applied μυστήριον/sacramentum to important signs of God’s salvation.

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given at a certain time and place points to the fulfillment of revelation “at the end of times.” The eschatological dimension of revelation is especially important, because the relationship to an eschatological fulfillment clearly expresses the fact that revelation, while factual in itself, is realized only gradually in an historical process. The partial nature of revelation cannot be properly construed without the dimension of the totality and universality of revelation, and the encompassing nature of revelation cannot be correctly understood without its close relationship to, and being represented in, particular pieces of revelation. Part and whole are correlative here: they stand in a reciprocal relationship to one another and form a unified and dynamic model. Viewed on the temporal level, a part is localized in isolated segments of time, such as the past, the present, and the future. A temporal part is potentially conceived in the entire temporal reality of revelation, its being a revelational process. This process, which is of a dynamic and correlative nature, is realized in the “fullness of times.” The fullness of times (cf. Gal. 4:4, Eph. 1:10) refers to the completion of the process of time in the final event of full revelation.35 Revelation has always both the aspect of fullness and the aspect of incompleteness; revelation is perfect and also imperfect on the time level. The fullness of times is always present and absent, partial and fulfilled at the same time and from the same angle. To say that “revelation is closed” at a certain time—for instance, with the death of the last Apostle—is to expresses the perfected or closed nature of revelation. But from the point of view of real history, the interpretation of revelation is open, which leads to new discoveries of perennial contents. Revelation, in this sense, is both closed and open, and these two features mutually define each other in what is the dynamic unity of revelation. The moments of revelation understood on the level of time refer to one another; they cannot exist without the other aspects; revelation is past, present, and future correlatively and dynamically. The entirety of revelation, which is beyond the time scale of the world clock, contains again aspects of the same nature put into the context of absoluteness. We may speak of immemorial past, ineffable present, or unreachable future of revelation in the absolute sense, maintaining a certain meaning of the temporal concreteness of revelation and its inner relations to one another. These relations can indeed exist in an infinite or absolute “way.” Nevertheless, I  do not consider the time modes of revelation a separate model, as these modes are present in all other models as well. Let me delineate one final model of revelation:  the model in which revelation reveals and hides its revealed contents—revelation itself—at the same time (Revelation as something and nothing (10)). Elements of this model of revelation are well known in the corresponding literature; dialectical theology emphasizes

35 It is often emphasized that “the right time” for something is expressed by the word kairos in the New Testament. Yet the expression of “the fullness of times” is construed with χρόνος in Gal. 4:4 and with καιρός in Eph. 1:10, while in the expression “the time is fulfilled” (such as Mark 1:15) καιρός is used.

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the simultaneous concreteness and incomprehensibility of divine revelation. In a different way we simply may say that revelation is revelation of God. God, however, is an ultimate mystery. Inasmuch as God cannot be properly comprehended in the strict sense—si comprehendis, non est Deus, as Augustine famously wrote— revelation is an expression of this paradoxical incomprehensibility. In our model here the factors are revelation as something and revelation as nothing. The first refers to the meaningful content of revelation articulated in theological propositions; and the second refers to the theological truth that every such proposition is both an opening and a concealing of what is revealed. What is disclosed is something, but at the same time nothing, because its ultimate content is given in the utmost incomprehensibility of God. Revelation, however, is not merely something and nothing at the same time, but it is also “everything.” The concreteness of revelation is expressed in the recognition that whatever exists, it is revelation in some sense and in some way. A fact is revelation, but so is the recognition of a fact; creation is revelation, but so is salvation; revelation is word and deed, a natural and a supernatural event, experience and reality; it is both private and public, personal and social, partial and encompassing. To use the Aristotelian-Thomistic formula in a new way, we can say that Revelatio est quodammodo omnia—Revelation is, in some sense, everything. Revelation is everything, because the absolute source of everything is revelation; and because everything expresses revelation in its own way, that is, directly or indirectly, and in an endless number of other ways as well.36 If everything is revelation, however, we may ask whether nothing can be revelation too, and the question is certainly not at all nonsensical. Silence can be meaningful not only in personal communication, but in music, poetry, or in the aesthetic experience of nature and of the starry sky as well. Silence is not only meaningful in many cases, but even constitutive of whole pieces of information. A  “complete lack” of expression can be conceived only figuratively, because the lack of something is recognizable only in the context of structures and contents of expression. Similarly, the lack of revelation is meaningful in the structures and contents of revelation; the nothing, as opposed to the something and everything of revelation, is thus part of an important model.37

36 This sentence is a follow-up of Aristotle’s point that the mind (or the “soul”) is potentially whatever is thinkable (De anima, 429 b), rephrased by Thomas Aquinas and others in the Middle Ages as anima est quodammodo omnia (cf. Thomas, Summa theologiae, I, q. 16, a. 3). 37 One may recall here the novel Silence by Shusaku Endo, where God’s ultimate silence is depicted in the midst of inhuman suffering. Yet this silence is indeed the extraordinary message of God to save the life of others. Cf. Endo, Silence (Tokyo: Sophia University, 1969). Martin Scorsese’s 2016 film Silence, based on this novel, reflects the ambiguous nature of God’s silence as withdrawal and, at the same time, a sort of inner revelation, a latent, even negative presence of God in utmost tribulations.

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There is another meaning of revelation as nothing. Revelation as something is centrally God’s communication to persons invited into the personal community of God. This community, however, is so fundamentally different from whatever we can conceive of, so dissimilar to the whole and parts of our mental life, that in some cases it may appear to be “nothing”—that is to say, nothing we can conceive of, comprehend, imagine, or perceive with our existing categories. This does not mean that—in a way difficult to describe—the effects of God’s revelation do not become expressed in some way or other; they are indeed expressed in real terms and they lead to the full transformation of a person. This process has real phases, results, and characters; the end result, inasmuch as visible, is a new kind of personality. In this personality the incomprehensible becomes comprehensible to some extent and yet remains, again, hidden in its genuine nature. The present model of revelation—the model of re-velation—reveals and re-veals, i.e., simultaneously discloses and conceals its content. These factors are in a dynamic relation to one another defining and changing each other in ever new ways. The factors of this last model are then in a correlative relationship to one another; this relation is more complex than the relations of the previous models. “Something” is universalized in “everything,” and “everything”—revelation as everything—leads into an even more encompassing dimension by introducing the lack of revelation in the two senses we saw above. The lack of revelation or revelation as “nothing,” however, cannot be comprehended except with respect to revelation as something.

5. Systems of Models A system of models can be understood in two fundamental ways. First, it may be seen as a closed system, that is, a system that contains everything that can be theoretically involved in that system. Second, a system can be seen as open to elements that are not contained in it. An open system, that is a well-ordered structure of models, is principally open to features of reality not represented in the system. I have defined models in terms of flexible patterns open to the dynamic reality of revelation. Similarly, an open system or well-ordered structure of models displays a structured openness to revelation. This openness is strictly required by the inexhaustible richness of revelation. Systems of models are pointers to this richness, just as complex models are pointers to the dynamic reality of revelation. Systems of models, just like the models themselves, are theoretical tools in understanding the contents of the models. We need them in order to conceive revelation from the point of view of a nonstandard radical philosophical theology. As we saw above, single factor models can be enlarged into double factor models, and the latter can be developed into multiple factor models, just as it happened in model (10) I proposed above. This suggests that the dynamism present even in the single factor models requires the involvement of more factors into a given model, or the extension of models into a system of models. This extension

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is anticipated in the dynamic content of simple models and in the reciprocity of double factor models. The construction of systems of models is simultaneously a theoretical possibility and a necessity: it is possible, because of the dynamism of revelation, and it is necessary because the dynamism of revelation cannot be theoretically contained in single or multiple factor models. We need a flexible model of revelation, which can be delineated by introducing a system of models. One may ask whether the attempt to systematize various forms and models on a level higher than what we have seen so far is not redundant. Revelation, it could be argued, cannot be detached from the world and concrete history, thus kinds, types, and models should be closely based on these factors. On this view, a speculative arrangement of the models of revelation has no recognizable theological or philosophical merit. Nevertheless, as I  tried to show above, a radical theory of revelation deals with the conditions of possibility of divine revelation. Even if these conditions exist by virtue of divine revelation itself—as everything originates in revelation—still, they are there precisely to ensure the full development of revelation. The dynamic or complex models, which I analyzed above, offer a view of revelation in which its delicate, complex, yet thoroughly unified structure comes to the fore. In such models, conditions and consequences, facts and cognitions as well as ordinary occurrences and miracles are reciprocally linked to one another in a unified manner. Divine revelation is not just the one or the other, not merely this or that factor, not even only creation or salvation, but all these factors taken together in an all-permeating and dynamic structure. Revelation cannot be only the world (natural revelation), as the world points beyond itself; it cannot be merely history (history of salvation), as history presupposes fact; and it cannot be purely a person, as persons exist in communities of some sort. In this approach of a radical philosophical theology of revelation the intricate structure of revelation emerges; the dynamic or complex models are instrumental in a more appropriate understanding. Just as with respect to the “epochal changes” of the history of revelation I attempted to offer a more balanced version of these changes, I similarly tried to review the number of models.38 Hellenism and German Theology are the two most important centers of historical changes, and “fact” and “cognition” are the most important single factor models of revelation in my understanding. By emphasizing the reciprocal and dynamic unity of revelation as “fact” and as “cognition” I have offered a list of complex models. Thereby I introduced not only a more developed notion of a model, but I also pointed out the importance of a systematic approach to revelation. The theoretical value of the dynamic and complex model can be seen in its emphasis on the systemic character of revelation. One might add other complex models to the ones I registered above, but it is more important here to show the prevalence of the dynamic character of revelation as shown in the context of the models themselves. By revising the list of “epochal changes” I  did not wish to

38 See Chapter 2, section 4.

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eliminate other periods, as they in fact contributed in important ways to the history of the notion. However, it seems to be justifiable to say that the two periods of inventive theological thinking are responsible for a number of the most important consequences in this history.39 I am open to arguments pointing out that the first historical synthesis influenced in many ways Western philosophical and theological history for more than a thousand years, while the second synthesis could not prove comparably efficacious so far. Thus it may be reasonable to speak of one decisive historical period and a number of contingent periods thereafter. Below I shall argue that the period of German Theology resulted in an overall renovation of philosophical and theological thinking especially with respect to divine revelation during the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Still, this renewal can be seen as reliant on the first period of synthesis, and the overall significance of the results of German Theology is in many ways controversial. If we accept this point, we may say that the first synthesis has proved to be primarily decisive. One can even say that the “epochal changes” of later ages have been variations of philosophical and theological motives of the first period, and thus a system of historical forms should concentrate on the contents of the first synthesis of Hellenism and Christianity. Latourelle’s idea of the “aspects of revelation” is an attempt to create a theological synthesis. His analyses of revelation as “action,” “history,” “knowledge,” and “encounter” imply the priority of encounter. Encounter is not only the essential form of a coming together of persons, but also the possibility of personal relationship; it is in encounter that we are with the other person in the most personal way. Encounter is action and knowledge, while the process of action and knowledge as history leads again to the fulfillment in a higher order encounter. The meaning of history is given in encounter, for instance, the encounter with God in the final vision as the goal of the history of salvation. History is a meaningful yet open system of actions, so it belongs to the form “action”; in encounter actions come together and constitute a higher-order occurrence. If encounter is the central form of revelation, then divine action is not revelation in the full sense yet. There needs to be another action on the side of the recipient of revelation; and there needs to occur a confluence of actions in a meaningful manner—precisely in the meaningfulness of personal encounter. Knowledge is always knowledge of something, such as a fact, an action, or an encounter; knowledge is about encounter; the former presupposes the latter. Encounter of persons, however, can be purely divine, inasmuch as revelation is first and foremost an encounter of divine persons.

39 The period of synthesis was closed by the Second Council of Constantinople (553). While this council attempted to reach the union of the followers of the Council of Chalcedon (451) and its enemies (mainly the Nestorians), the unity remained fragile or even unsuccessful especially in the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire which came under Muslim rule in less than a century after 553.

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It appears that none of the models has a central significance in Dulles’s list. His models are disparate not only methodologically, but in content too: he seems to be very careful to avoid expressing stronger sympathies for any of the models. As he emphasizes, “The variety of models has advantages that should not be sacrificed by the adoption of a single model, however apt.”40 While Dulles analyzes in a thoroughgoing way the importance of “symbolic communication” as the underlying most important features of all models, he refuses to unify these models in one common form. From a phenomenological point of view, he may be right, since the aim of an initial survey is a simple overview of typical forms. There is, however, the theoretical requirement in every typology calling for an at least hypothetical unification of the various forms as presupposed already by a low-level comparison. This requirement is acknowledged to some extent by Dulles himself when he points out the importance of a symbolic interpretation of every model of revelation; accordingly, the symbolic character is the central feature of the models. However, one can argue that divine revelation has eo ipso a unified character, that is to say, the term “divine revelation” is not merely a bunch of unrelated forms, types, or models, not even a family resemblance concept. While we speak of a number of simple or complex models, forms, types, and kinds, at least the general outlines of a unified picture of divine revelation may appear which can or cannot be emphasized. In my list of the complex models, the dynamic character of revelation uncovers a certain structure. This structure should not be left unrecognized if we want to go beyond a mere typology of forms. As it seems, the relationship among the individual models in the dynamic sense can be construed in a concentric way. Revelation as something and nothing (10) stands in the center as the most essential form. This form appears to contain the maximum we can say of God’s revelation in the perspective of a radical theory of revelation. Revelation as fact and cognition (1), as part and whole (9), and as experience and reality (6) constitutes the first concentric circle around the center; it exhibits a metaphysical dimension of models. This sphere is general and not bound to a specific understanding of God and the world. In the second circle we find communicational models, such as revelation as word and deed (4), revelation as person and community (8), and private and public revelation (7). In the third concentric circle the salvific models appear; they emerge in the context of the history of salvation. Such are the notions of revelation as creation and salvation (2), revelation as natural and supernatural (5), and revelation as incarnation and resurrection (3). The metaphysical, the communicational, and the salvific spheres share the characteristics of each other to some extent. For instance, revelation is more or less latently salvific and communicational; still, some complex models belong more emphatically to the one or the other sphere. I assign revelation as natural and supernatural (5) to the sphere of the salvific circle, for it is in the history of salvation where the distinction between the natural and the supernatural appears in an explicit form; the distinction is

40 Dulles, Models of Revelation, p. 128.

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of a salvific significance. In a diagram, the concentric model can be portrayed as follows41: Revelation as:

g d Co nition; an

le ho W

Creatio na nd Sa lva Word an dD ee d

ommunity dC an

Something and Nothing

a lity; P rt and ea

ience and per R Ex

al rnatur upe dS an al

n

and Resurre ctio ation n; arn c Na In ; tu n r it o d Public n a e ; t P a ers riv o ;P

Fa ct

Is the concentric model merely a logical construct based on the concepts we use? Or perhaps divine revelation itself can indeed be analyzed in such a structure? We have gained the insight into the dynamic structure of divine revelation on the basis of our complex models. These models have been made possible by the recognition of the fact that simple models cannot properly express the richness of revelation. The concentric structure of revelation is a consequence of the use of the complex models: the concentric structure is a higher-level model which can be used to interpret the nature of divine revelation from the viewpoint of a radical theory. Inasmuch as a model is a logical construct, a tool to interpret a certain circle of problems, the concentric model is a logical construct. Inasmuch as however a model is grounded in reality, the concentric structure is also a summary of real events in divine revelation expressed in a logical way by the finite human mind. This structure, based on the dynamic or complex model, has a twofold plausibility: on one hand, intuitively, it seems plausible that revelation is not merely a single sort of event, but a complex one better expressed in complex models; on the other hand, the initial plausibility of the complex models supports the plausibility of the higher-level, concentric model of revelational structure.

41 See also Appendix I.

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In the present section I addressed the problem of the arrangement of this structure; so far we have considered the dynamic hierarchy of the models. In pointing out the formal existence of such an arrangement I  want to call attention to the fact of the structurally unified nature of revelation. In the complex models, revelation is given in a certain way, but neither these nor any other model is able to describe the infinite richness of divine revelation. As theoretical constructs, models are not intended to contain revelation in re. Revelation in re is infinitely richer than what we can put into a model, a number of models, or a structure of models. Nevertheless, the use of dynamic models and their structures can help us have a better theoretical understanding of what revelation in re consists in.

6. An Example: The Liturgy As an example of the unified nature of revelation consider the Christian liturgy.42 In spite of the variations and changes throughout its history, the overall meaning of the liturgy has remained constant in the two main traditions, the Greek and the Latin. Even in some of the Protestant developments—in Lutheranism and Anglicanism—the central meaning of the liturgy has been emphatically sustained. This meaning expresses the fundamental notion to the effect that the Christian liturgy symbolically summarizes, presents, reiterates, and realizes not merely the core events of Jesus’s life, but also the process of the economy of salvation as it is contained in a comprehensive theological vision of reality. The various interpretations of the Christian liturgy depend on the meaning of a “symbol.” There are two basic possibilities of interpretation in this respect, a realist and a non-realist. If we adopt a realist approach, then a “symbol” is an expression of reality, which possesses the character of a second-order or intentional being referring to the first-order or original reality, that is, its very source. The symbol as a real expression of reality forms a dynamic unity in which the two factors—the first-order reality and its expression in a certain form—reciprocally interact. In this interaction, reality is presented in a new form of the understanding of the symbol’s meaning. Nevertheless, if we assume a non-realist approach to symbols, then a symbol is not an original expression of the first-order reality, but merely an arbitrary sign or index which customarily refers to what is symbolized in a given semantic context. Such a symbol is a sign constructed in a context of non-real codes. In this approach, a symbol is not rooted in reality and can be freely changed to, or substituted by, a different sign. The great liturgical traditions of Christianity have understood the liturgy as a symbol in the realist sense. Accordingly, the liturgy is not an arbitrary sign of what happened in real history at a certain point of time, but an expression of the core

42 For a thoroughgoing theological investigation of this topic, see Philip Caldwell, Liturgy as Revelation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014).

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reality to which the symbol refers. The liturgy reiterates reality but simultaneously realizes it in an essential way. The process of realization does not produce an ontological reality different from the real event to which the symbol refers. If the liturgy symbolizes Jesus’s life, then this life is identical with the real life of Jesus in a fundamental sense, just as the symbol in the realist sense is a real expression of what is conveyed in the symbol. The composition of the liturgy stems from the symbolic unity of the liturgical process, which is a primordial expression of the liturgical meaning. The liturgy constitutes the liturgical contents, as the priest or the pastor carries out the liturgical actions. These actions presuppose both the dimension of the general meaning of the liturgy and the particular aspects of this general meaning. The priest realizes these meanings by carrying out the real liturgical actions. The priest does not produce the meanings of the liturgy in the strict sense of “production.” The meanings, originating in the meaningful dimension of the symbol, are expressed or realized in the performances of the priest in the liturgy.43 The Christian liturgy is a symbolic exposition not merely of some events in Jesus’s life, but rather of his entire life, and not only his life in its entirety on earth, but his life too as partaking in, or representing, God’s absoluteness. Jesus is recognized in the liturgy as the second person of the Holy Trinity, and whatever happened to him in real-time history, it happened to the Trinity as well (see again the doctrine of communicatio idiomatum). Jesus’s real-time life is an expression of the life of the Trinity. Thus within a realist approach to symbols, considering the liturgy merely as the production of certain individual human persons would be a simplification. In the performance of the liturgy by certain human persons it is the symbolized reality itself that ultimately determines the entire process. The liturgy is in a real sense produced by the original, divine dimension; it is then a real-symbolic expression of creation and salvation, God’s universal economy, that is to say, God’s revelation in its general and specific senses. Inasmuch as the economy of salvation is centered on the incarnation of God in the person of Christ, the liturgical actions most importantly symbolize God’s divine reality as seen in the perspective of the economy of salvation. The specific liturgical actions realize a sacred performance in which we find two basic threads of action. On one hand, God or his representative, the priest, discloses a space in which the sacred performance is realized; this space is the “temple.” On the other hand, human beings are allowed to take part in this original opening so that they can be present for the very purpose of partaking in the sacred process. The two processes meet in the liturgical action. The liturgical performance is carried out emphatically by the priestly actor; the human actor is invited to join the former in such a way that the roles remain both unified and distinct. In the encounter of the divine and the human actors a new creation is born—the person transformed through the sacred performance. In the symbolism of the ancient

43 However, the priest is constitutive in the liturgical action, that is to say, he partakes in the process of the origination of the meaning in his own way.

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liturgies, such as the Catholic, the highest point of the liturgy is the unification of God and man in the Eucharist, first in what is traditionally called transubstantiation, and then in the simple acts of eating and drinking the divine body and blood by the priest and the faithful. In these simple acts God wholly gives himself to humanity and humanity becomes symbolically united with God. Human persons become united with divine persons and are allowed to leave the sacred space to diffuse the effects of this transubstantiation in their own life. Thereby the space of the temple is universalized into the lives of the blessed persons, and the liturgical process is enlarged so that reality as a whole may be permeated by the divine power of the liturgy. The specific structure of the liturgy expresses these general features in the concrete actions of the process. In the ancient Greek and pre-Vatican II liturgies there were three important parts of the liturgy:  the preparation, the readings, and the sacrifice. The three phases correspond to three phases of the economy of salvation: Creation, the initial history of salvation, and the fulfillment of salvation in Christ. In the contemporary Catholic mass, the first part is hardly recognizable, and in the remaining two parts a stronger emphasis is put on the liturgy of the Word. While in earlier liturgies the Old Testament was represented by chants from the Psalms, in the new liturgy readings from the Old Testament have been emphatically introduced. Thus the emphasis on the intellectual-rational part of the liturgy—culminating in the homily of the priest—has become much stronger. At the same time, the inner relations of the readings and the chants—Old Testament, Psalms, the letters, and the gospels—have become more visible and illuminating. The symbolic nature of the relations of the readings has come to the fore. In this relation, the first reading proves to be a symbol of the second, the second of the third, the third of the fourth. They refer to each other and form a common structure of meanings standing in a dynamic unity with each other.44 This unity of the readings is symbolic, just as the entire process of the liturgy. There is also an inner system of proportions: the part of the readings, the liturgy of the Word is to the liturgy of the Eucharist as the first readings are to the reading of the Gospel. The main part of the liturgy is however the Eucharistic part (the liturgy of the Faithful or the liturgy of the Initiated) in which the dimension of the liturgy becomes reality: the bread and the wine are transubstantiated into the body and blood of Jesus. The priest, by eating the body and drinking the blood, becomes united with Christ in a certain way, and so do the faithful by receiving the Eucharist. It would be a serious misunderstanding of the symbolic nature of the liturgy to think that what takes place in transubstantiation is merely a reiteration of an isolated historical event, that is, a “poor fact.” According to dogmatic formulations, the transubstantiation is essentially the same one that took place by the actions of Christ; what happened was a rich fact which expressed the reality

44 Cf. Caldwell, Liturgy, p. 115.

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of divine life. The transubstantiation in the liturgy is a real-symbolic expression of the most important dimension of reality, God’s life in its fullness. It is of a central significance that the bread and the wine as substances of the sacrifice are brought to the temple as offerings of the faithful. The faithful by their daily work produce these substances which are then transubstantiated into the Eucharist. The faithful, then, live, work, and produce their fruits already in view of the transubstantiation; the meaning of their work is given in the perspective of the act of that extraordinary change. By eating the bread and drinking the wine the priest and the faithful partake in God’s reality. They participate in God’s life, in God’s living revelation as the expression of his plan of salvation. They become part of this revelation in the simplest actions of eating and drinking. The liturgical process as the real symbol of revelation refers to the encompassing process of revelation in which the entire creation is invited to be transubstantiated, inasmuch as possible, into the life of God. The liturgy is an inherent part of the encompassing dynamism of God’s life. In this sense we may symbolically say that this reality produces the liturgical dimension and is an effect of the same dimension simultaneously, for the sacrifice of the liturgy is always the same as the only sacrifice brought about by the Word of God as the second person of the Trinity. Liturgical forms which abandoned the ancient doctrine of transubstantiation are able to express the same notions merely on a more abstract level, reducing their meaning to aspects of cognitive reality. If the nature of transubstantiation is left undefined, the symbolic meaning also remains undefined, and if it is defined as an act of mere remembering of some historical event, then the symbolic meaning is reduced to a simple reiteration. Its symbolic meaning becomes very weak, since it approaches a non-real understanding of a symbol. Still, just by performing the liturgical acts, a certain general understanding of the original meaning of the liturgical process is present in nontraditional liturgies as well. The Christian liturgy is a unity in the form of an encompassing process. It is a drama with a general conclusion and the disclosing of an important message. The particular instances of the liturgy are based on the continuous activity of the Church as an agent performing the liturgy, and the Church is this agent. The existence of the Church is a liturgical performance even if there might be no real liturgy carried out at a given time. In other words, divine revelation is realized in the very existence of the Church in the principal sense and, derivatively, in the actual sense of the liturgical activity. In this schema, human persons are bearers of revelation inasmuch as they are united with God in the most intimate sense by eating the body and drinking the blood of God, that is to say in partaking in his life. The unity of the liturgical process is perspicuous in spite of the structures and parts that have changed to some extent throughout the centuries. This unity symbolically expresses the unity of divine revelation. We may produce “models” of some parts or aspects of the liturgical process, such as the preparation, the liturgy of the Word, or the liturgy of the Faithful. We may divide the liturgical process into smaller units and abstractly understand these units as “models,” as instruments

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of the proper understanding of the entire liturgy. However, it is obvious that it would be quite difficult to understand the unified process of the liturgy merely by using such isolated models. But if we point out, for instance, that a general model, which expresses the reciprocal relationship between the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist, is more apt to model the unified liturgical process, then we are closer to the truth. And we arrive even closer at the same truth if we understand the liturgical process on the basis of its real-symbolic unity which synthesizes various aspects and parts of the liturgical process and ultimately expresses God’s genuine life in a real-symbolic way. It is in the above way that the liturgy instantiates the unity of revelation; it expresses this revelation symbolically. It simultaneously presupposes, presents, and realizes it. The meaning of the liturgy consists in this threefold action: presupposing, presenting, and realizing God’s economy in a real-symbolic way. We can say that in every particular performance of the liturgy these actions are fulfilled factually, really, and not merely in principle or in a diminished sense of a symbol.

7. A Concluding Remark In the present chapter my aim was to develop the notion of a complex and dynamic model of divine revelation. I  have first overviewed some of the descriptions of forms of revelation; starting with general and unsystematic accounts I  gradually approached better organized patterns. Gerardus van der Leeuw’s account is relatively superficial though not without some theoretically important points. Friedrich Heiler’s systematic account has proved to be very helpful to develop a more accurate and informed pattern of revelation. As a theologian, René Latourelle was able to offer a list of the forms of revelation which is organized in a more systematic manner. But it was only Avery Dulles who recognized the importance of well-defined models of revelation as means of construing a philosophically and theologically satisfying description of revelation. I have criticized some models of revelation for their simplicity. I pointed out that models of revelation are organically connected to one another, a fact which I demonstrated by introducing complex models. I have emphasized the dynamic and reciprocal relationship existing in each complex model. I  developed the notion of complex model into the concentric system of models of revelation, itself a higher-level model in which reciprocal relations, correlational nature, and pervasive dynamism are recognizable. The recognition of the dynamism of revelation has assisted us to see the requirement of the unified model of revelation. In the present chapter, this model could be approached on the level of dynamic and reciprocal structures. We shall need further effort in the following chapters to establish a more elaborate notion of the unity of revelation. One final question may be asked: What is the place of the nonstandard radical philosopher-theologian in such a search for an appropriate understanding of revelation? The answer can be delineated on the basis of the example of the liturgy.

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The participants of the liturgical process are included in this process not merely as senseless objects but as reflective persons and as a community of such persons. Those who partake in the process of the liturgy attentively are able to understand and experience the reality of the entire liturgical process. I am proposing an understanding here from the point of view of the “partaker.” The radical philosopher partakes in the process of the search for the fact and the conditions of the notion of revelation in the perspective of the reality of revelation. Thus he takes part in a process which leads to a reflective understanding of the formal presuppositions of the talk of revelation. Through this understanding, the fact of revelation shifts into the center. This shift constitutes the active possibility of realizing the reality of divine revelation in our personal lives.

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1. Preliminaries In the Introduction I  have already mentioned that the notion of self-revelation is a novelty in the history of relevant reflections. It seems to me that this notion is the most promising candidate for a unified model of revelation. Whether this assumption can be made plausible and convincing is to be answered in this chapter. I emphasize however that the notion of self-revelation, though important in this book, merely points to what I term “radical revelation”—the subject matter of Chapter  4 below. Self-revelation has the interesting characteristic that it was recognized in its full sense relatively late in history: in the nineteenth century. This fact gives a particular emphasis to the investigations presented here, for it shows how important the theoretical work on the notion of divine revelation is. This work presupposes theological realities, actually the body of theological doctrines of the previous centuries, but the corresponding work is not theological in the strict sense, but, as I argued above, philosophical-theological. In what follows, thus, I present a complex theory of divine revelation as selfrevelation. First, I offer an analysis of the grammatical structure of “self-revelation.” Second, I  present an overview of the different meanings of self-revelation from various viewpoints. I proceed to comment on the historical and cognitive origins of this notion. As in the previous chapter, the problem of the proper model of selfrevelation will be discussed as well. I  shall attempt to show the importance of a unified model of self-revelation in a radical philosophical theology. I shall show the way in which we can continue our investigations in order to understand the notion of radical revelation in Chapter 4.

2. The Grammar of Self-Revelation “Self-revelation” is a compound noun, in which not only the two words, “self ” and “revelation” need to be defined, but also their grammatical relation. “Revelation,” the chief noun in the compound, is of Latin origin which entered the English language at a very early stage by way of ecclesiastic Latin.1 The Latin revelatio is a 1 The French révélation contributed to the process of the involvement.

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composite of the prefix re (back, away) and velatio, veiling. Despite its nonclassical origin, revelatio in Latin has a meaning, common to verbs with the prefix re-, which do not merely express a temporal or spatial “going or moving back or away,” but rather a repetition and thereby an emphatic sense of the verb in question (an intensive prefix).2 Religio is a compound of re- and ligo, “to bind,” yet the meaning of religio is not “re-binding,” but “binding very strongly,” “binding [as an action] or being bound [as the result of an action] very strongly, divinely.” Hence we have the old meaning of religio as taboo and “obligation” set down by the gods. With the standard meaning of re-, we would have merely “re-binding.”3 Taken in this way, the prefix re-, together with velatio, could potentially mean not only “veiling again” or “putting back the veil,” but also “veiling amply, supernaturally, divinely.”4 Moreover the noun revelatio, similarly to related expressions with the same ending, has the double meaning of an action itself and the result of an action.5 In English, the separate meaning of the prefix disappears. The meaning is determined merely by the commonly accepted sense first on the basis of the religious use, then in derived senses only loosely related to the original meaning. “Self-revelation” did not appear in English before the early 1800s. The expression was formed as a translation of Selbstoffenbarung, which had been used in German philosophy and theology for some time. Self-revelation as a philosophical and theological expression was indeed based on the G erman use, as mentioned before. However, Selbstoffenbarung as an expression is related to the Niphal stem of the Hebrew gala. In 1 Sam. 3:21 we find: “And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself (‫ )נִגְלָה‬to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.”6 In 2 See, for instance, recens (lately, freshly), relatio (retorting), or recordor (to think over, bethink oneself of, be mindful of, remember). 3 “Concerning the etymology of this word [religio], various opinions were prevalent among the ancients. Cicero derives it from relegere, an etymology favoured by the verse cited ap. Aulus Gellius 4, 9, 1, religentem esse oportet, religiosum nefas; whereas Servius (as Vergilius, Aeneis, 8, 349), Lactantius (4, 28), Augustine (Retractationes 1, 13) al., assume religare as the primitive, and for this derivation Lactantius cites the expression of Lucretius (1, 931; 4, 7); religionum nodis animos exsolvere. Modern etymologists mostly agree with this later view, assuming as root lig, to bind, whence also lic-tor, lex, and ligare; hence, religio sometimes means the same as obligatio’. . . . Religio as reverence for God (the gods), the fear of God, connected with a careful pondering of divine things; piety, religion, both pure inward piety and that which is manifested in religious rites and ceremonies; hence the rites and ceremonies, as well as the entire system of religion and worship, the res divinae or sacrae, were frequently called religio or religiones” (C. T.  Lewis and C.  Short, A Latin Dictionary, p. 1556). 4 This meaning of revelatio is only a theoretical possibility; I do not find any other text in which revelatio is understood as “veiling amply,” although this possible meaning is clearly given in the word. 5 The suffix “tio” is a compound of two Indo-European ending for verbal nouns, “ti” and “en” (mentio/mentionem, ratio/rationem etc.). 6 Emphasis is mine.

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this verse, we find a parallelism characteristic of the biblical style—the same notion is expressed twice in very similar ways: “The Lord appeared”—“The Lord revealed himself.” Both “appeared” (‫ ) ָראָה‬and “revealed himself ” are in the reflexive Niphal stem; the expression “revealed himself ” is defined by the parallel expression “shows himself, appears.” There are only a few places in the Tanakh where ‫ גָ ַּלע‬is used as a verb expressing directly the divine self-disclosure (such as Gen. 35:7). However, we often find gala as expressing the showing or appearing of something, for instance, his “righteousness” (Isa. 56:1) or his “secret” (Amos 3:7). The Niphal applied to gala as expressing God’s self- disclosure must be seen always in the given context; this form contains in a germ the later theological notion of Selbstoffenbarung. Offenbarung has a much wider and more natural use in German than its equivalent in English. The verb offenbaren means the whole spectrum of what we considered above with reference to “opening,” “disclosing,” “uncovering,” “manifesting,” “demonstrating,” and “revealing.”7 Offenbarung as a noun has a wide variety of meanings, the theological sense being only one of them. In Selbstoffenbarung, the meaning is given in the context of the natural and widespread use of both selbst and Offenbarung. Selbst as a personal pronoun is different from selb. . ., selber, selbig as demonstrative pronouns; and it is different from Selbst as a noun which was used in the neuter from 1702.8 Selbst in its original meaning is derivative of the genitive of selber and is defined as a non-declinable demonstrative pronoun, which stands always after the referent word and emphasizes that it is only the person or the thing referred to, nobody and nothing else, that are meant by the referent.9

In its separate position, selbst became a preposition at some point. In the sixteenth century it was already used in such sense, although solid compound forms began to appear only later.10 In the German meaning it is of special importance that, in the compounds beginning with selbst-, the preposition can be both the subject and the object of the base verb—even though in most cases selbst- is clearly the object. There are expressions in which the meaning is obvious, for instance, Selbstverständnis, where

7 Cf. Chapter 1, section 3. 8 Thus it may have been the case that the neutral noun form of Selbst was imported from English self as a noun. See J. and W. Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch (Munich:  DTV, 1984), vol. 16, p. 451. 9 Günther Drosdowski (ed.), Duden, Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in sechs Bänden (Mannheim/Wien/Zürich: Bibliographisches Institute-Dudenverlag, 1980). 10 Selbst can make a compound with infinitives (selbstdenken—autonomous thinking), with abstract nouns (Selbstachtung—self-respect), with agent nouns (Selbstherrscher— monarch), with adverbs (selbsterfahren—self-experienced, or simply experienced), or with participles (selbstaufopfernd—self-sacrificing). Selbstoffenbarung (self-revelation), selbstoffenbaren (to self-reveal), selbstoffenbarend (self-revealing) and selbstoffenbart (self-revealed) belong to the possibilities of this use.

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the preposition selbst- is not a separate object of which Verständnis is asserted.11 In Selbstbeherrschung, “self-control,” however, selbst- is the object of the verb. Certain words have a double reading: Selbstbestimmung can be either “self-rule,” a rule not controlled by anyone else, or “self-determination” in the sense of one’s determination of oneself as oneself. The word Selbstoffenbarung seems to have a basic meaning in which selbst- is the object of the activity of Offenbarung, “revealing”—then it means “revelation of the subject of the act of revelation itself.” The same noun has a different, though latent, meaning in which revelation is seen as direct revelation, a revelation of revelation itself. If something is a Selbstoffenbarung, it happens without an agent or external motive, spontaneously showing the nature of the thing. In the relevant literature we can see that Selbstoffenbarung does not only have the meaning “the revelation of the subject of revelation,” but also the meaning of “pure revelation of revelation, not mediated by anything or anybody.” Only on the basis of these meanings is it possible to understand properly the evolution of the notion of self-revelation.12 According to dictionaries, the meaning of the English “self-revelation” is “Revelation of one’s thoughts, emotions, or attitudes, intentionally or unintentionally.”13 A more technical meaning appeared during the past decades in economics:  “Self-revelation is a property of a mechanism where each agent maximizes his or her utility (or expected utility) by revealing his or her true type.”14 The two definitions coincide in that they both emphasize the intentional or unintentional self-imparting character of the act of self-revelation. The more precise meaning of “self-revelation,” however, is greatly dependent on the question of how we understand the position of “self-” here. “Self-” is grammatically defined as a prefix, similar to “auto-,” “extra-,” or “neo-,” which combine freely with verbs and adjectives. In “self-denial” or “autosuggestion,” “self-” and “auto-” have grammatically similar functions; in both cases, the prefix refers to the subject or agent of the verb in terms of an object. The denial is about the subject of the act of denying, and the suggestion is about the subject of the act of suggesting. In words like self-control, selfwill, self-destruction, self-management, self-indulgence, or self-discipline we find the same relation between the prefix and the base word. Self-control is the control of the subject of control; self-will is the will of the act of willing emphasizing his

11 When we say in German selbstverständlich, we mean that a given thing, opinion, standpoint, and the like, are “naturally or obviously” so. 12 Selbstoffenbarer would be “the only one who reveals”; Selbstoffenbarung, similarly, the activity of the only one as revealer. 13 See “Self-revelation” (n d.), Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) at Dictionary.com. See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/self-revelation (accessed September 13, 2007). In the meantime, Dictionary.com amended the definition to this: “disclosure of one’s private feelings, thoughts, etc., especially when unintentional.” 14 See “Self-revelation” (n.d.). http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Self-revelation (accessed September 13, 2007). As of July 2017 reference.com does not offer the above definition which was moved to Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-revelation.

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or her own will in contradistinction to other wills; self-destruction is the destruction of the subject of the act of destruction; and so on. The relation is the same in compounds where the object is linked to an -ing participle, such as in selfjustifying, self-defeating, or self-approving. In compounds of the type “verb and adverbial,” there is again the same relation: self-styled, self-appointed, self-made, or self-taught. In these expressions, the subject of the act of the verb is at the same time the object of the same act. “Self-revelation” is an abstract noun based on the verb “to reveal”; it can also be used with the -ing participle form (“self-revealing”) or with the adverbial form (“self-revealed”). In these cases, the prefix is the object of the verb or the adverb. To put it differently, the subject of the action of the verb is the object of this action, expressed by the prefix of the verb. On one hand, the prefix determines the verbal form (“revelation,” etc.) so that it defines its connection to the prefix as its object; on the other hand, the object of the verb frees the verb from any other determination than itself; it liberates its meaning from specifications. “Self-revelation” is on the one hand revelation of the subject of the act of revealing; on the other hand it is a revelation that has no other object than revelation itself. It is, thus, a revelation of revelation where the activity of revelation is revealed by the activity itself. In its double property, “self-revelation” is close to Selbstoffenbarung.15 The hyphen that connects the prefix with the base word has an interesting function. In some cases, it depends on the local tradition whether we use the hyphen in some compounds. We can write “carmaker” or “car-maker,” “half-cooked” or “half cooked,” “habit-forming” or “habit forming,” and so on. In compounds with the prefix “self,” however, we need to use the hyphen; we do not write “self accusation,” self sacrifice,” or “self formation.” This grammatical rule is understandable on the basis of the role of the prefix in such compounds. The hyphen expresses the fact that the prefix determines the base word substantively, that is, not uninterestingly or superficially. A substantive determination is also a reciprocal determination: not only does the prefix determine the word, but the word has the prefix as its object or quasi-object and becomes determined thereby. In other hyphenated expressions, the use of the hyphen has a similar reason: see, for instance, “quasiobject,” “half-cooked,” or “ex-president.” However, these expressions cannot be written together: “selfaccusation,” “quasiobject,” or “expresident” would eliminate the peculiar relation between the prefix and the base word. “Self-revelation” as a hyphenated “verb and object” type of compound reveals its intriguing content already by its grammatical form. The inner dynamism between the verb and the object, the prefix and the base word is delicately maintained by the use of the hyphen; the same hyphen ensures the reciprocal relationship between the parts of the compound. Self-revelation is revelation of the self, that is, the subject of the act of revealing; and it is at the same time the “revelation

15 An example of the case where the prefix “self-” is merely an object without the function of a preposition is the expression “self-addressed.” Here “self-” means just the object of the adverb; it does not mean that the self-addressed letter addresses itself.

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of revelation itself ”; no other object than revelation itself is meant to take the place in the act of revelation. Self-revelation as a verbal noun, moreover, is an action and the result of an action; it is ongoing revelation seen as an activity, and the consequence of this activity as the achievement of the activity itself. The grammar of self-revelation, both in English and German, becomes less complicated when we add the agent separately. Speaking of divine self-revelation (göttliche Selbstoffenbarung) or of God’s self-revelation (Selbstoffenbarung Gottes), we make it clear that the act of self-revealing, either as an action or as the result of an action, is God’s deed. That is to say, the “self ” becomes identical with “God,” and the meaning of the expression is simplified into “God’s disclosing or revealing himself.” Since however “God” is a nonstandard subject, the simplified meaning proves to be even more complicated than it was before; for, although in some sense personal, God’s being is infinite; and this infinity requires that God’s selfrevelation be identical with God’s being, and that God’s being be identical with his self-revelation. This identity between God and self-revelation raises serious theological problems; most centrally, it raises the question as to the “self ” of God. Before we can investigate this point, let me outline the history of the notion of self-revelation.

3. The History of Self-Revelation There are two fundamental reasons why the notion of self-revelation in the strict sense did not appear in theological reflections for a long time.16 Christianity has considered itself as God’s ultimate revelation in the person of Jesus and the Church Jesus founded. The very notion of revelation was, as we saw, about the final disclosure of the divine to be accomplished in the Last Judgment. More specifically, Jesus appears in the New Testament and in the subsequent theological considerations as God’s “revelation,” the incarnation of the logos of the Father. John says on the one hand that “No one has ever seen God” (Jn 1:18); and “he who sees me sees him who sent me” (Jn 12:45). Jesus “declares” the invisible God; and by seeing him we see, in a sense, God himself. God’s very nature is love (1 Jn 4:8) and Jesus is the factual expression of God’s love. Revelation as self-revelation is clearly in the making in these and similar passages; however, theological reflections did not consider the problem of revelation crucial for a long time.17 When finally the understanding of the importance of the notion of revelation was ripened, theology

16 In this section I use passages from Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, chapter 2. 17 Latourelle and other authors confirm the important point that the notion of revelation (not to mention self-revelation) did not emerge in an explicit and special form of a treatise until the rise of modern Deism. However, we find expressions close to the later notion, such as in Origen: Christ is the image in which the Father reveals himself. Cf. Origen, On First Principles (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 2013), chapter II.

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had the task to defend the supernatural meaning of revelation against rationalist and naturalist authors. One good example is John Henry Newman’s thought. Newman offers as an accepted view that “natural religion” was not only possible but actual as well among “the Heathens.” Natural religion, as he writes, “teaches, it is true, the infinite power and majesty, the wisdom and goodness, the presence, the moral governance, and, in one sense, the unity of the Deity.” He adds however that the same natural religion “gives little or no information respecting what may be called his personality.” God’s personality was given in its full sense in the life of Jesus Christ, which shows God to be of a concrete personal nature.18 Since it is not only Newman’s emphasis on the need of supernatural revelation that is important here, but also his understanding of “God’s personality,” I shall return to this problem below in the context of the relationship between self and personhood. Newman does not use the expression of self-revelation, yet he emphasizes God’s self-communication in his “personality.” Kant’s importance in the development of the notion of self-revelation is immense. The Kantian analysis of philosophical theology in the Critique of Pure Reason is far from being of merely logical nature.19 What Kant ingeniously criticized was an understanding of the notion of God as an unjustified projection in the form and content of sensual experience. The Kantian criticism of the predicate of being, as one we cannot freely attribute to the mere notion of God, is rooted in his latent criticism of the kind of being traditional theology credited to God. Indeed, it was the nature of the being of God which Kant so sharply scrutinized in the criticisms of the traditional arguments for God’s existence. Being, in Kant’s empirical sense, cannot be attributed to God. However, as an ideal of the mind— that is, as a being categorically different from being given in sensation—God still has a central place in Kant’s system. The Kantian moral argument for God offered a different conception of being as compatible with God, that is to say, being as a moral postulate or necessity. Being as a moral postulate is unavoidable inasmuch as humans are moral beings. Thus, Kant’s understanding of being as the postulate of morality outlines an understanding of being in which human freedom and moral fulfillment are unified. By criticizing the soundness and logical structure of the traditional proofs for the existence of God, Kant prepared the soil for a new understanding of divine communication, thus a new understanding of revelation as well. In Kant’s work, the notion of God as a necessary ideal of the mind created an epistemic immediacy, as opposed to the mediate character of the traditional proofs of God, between the

18 See John Henry Newman’s sermon, “The Influence of Natural and Revealed Religion Respectively,” in James David Earnest and Gerard Tracey (eds), Fifteen Sermons Preached before the University of Oxford between A.D. 1826 and 1843 (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 24–37. 19 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), B 6111/A 583.

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human mind and the notion of God.20 This immediacy disqualified the traditional theology of distance which was construed cosmologically, that is, on the grounds of a geometrically and geocentrically measurable physical distance. However, God as a necessary postulate of moral consciousness or practical reason defined a new understanding of God’s existence, not in the terms of empirical existence, but in terms of the postulate of morality which placed God immediately into the heart of moral action. The most direct form of this step in Kant was his formulation of the universally valid categorical imperative as the motor of human morality. For a postulate of moral action denotes not only a logical necessity; it is rather of genuine ontological importance, a condition of human existence. The Kantian understanding of God contributed to the historic change in the notion of God, traditionally conceived as a form of natural perfection, to the notion of God permeating concrete human existence in its personal core. Kant thus conceives moral reality and the existence of God as complementary terms. God, in this sense, loses the objective-natural distance from human persons and assumes a structural and dynamic immediacy in such persons. On the basis on this immediacy we are able to understand Kant’s prophetic utterance in Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason: God’s future intervention into history is predicted on the basis of reason in the Kantian sense (Vernunft); that is to say, according to the Kantian argument, a certain kind of revelation, consonant with reason, is preconceived in philosophical terms.21 For Kant, the old notion of religion is historical in the sense that history is bound to the empirical and the empirical is distinct from reason. As opposed to the old notion of religion, the new notion of “the religion of reason” (Vernunftsreligion) is based on God’s new kind of revelation which is simultaneously reasonable and supernatural, historical yet perennial, intellectual yet ethical-practical. Still, even for Kant, the highest form of revelation is nonempirical but intuitive: it is given in the form of illumination: Rather, it is in the principle of pure rational religion (reine Vernunftsreligion), of such religion as a constantly occurring (although not empirical) divine revelation, that the basis for that transition to this new order of things must lie.22

It is evident that Kant did not want to dispose of the notion of divine revelation. What he proposed was a change in the meaning of revelation, a change not

20 The ontological proof for the existence of God is based on the recognition of divine presence in the human mind. Yet this presence is construed as expressing something fundamentally different from the mind, “that than which a greater cannot be thought” or, for Descartes, the notion of infinity. In both cases, as in further versions of the ontological argument, epistemic immediacy is eclipsed by infinite distance. 21 Cf. Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, trans. Werner S. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2009), part III. 22 Kant, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, p. 136 (see also parts III and VII).

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isolated from some features of the earlier notion. Kant’s use of the term “history” received a thoroughgoing criticism among others in the works of Schelling and Hegel, and Fichte suggests an understanding of revelation as a fact.23 Still, without Kant’s seminal influence, the notion of revelation as history and fact could not have developed into its post-Kantian philosophical and theological forms, such as the historical understanding of revelation. God’s being, in this perspective, is considered in the context of human and divine freedom and thus it is considered dynamically. Fichte understood it in the Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, where he transcends the horizon of the being of God as merely functional and emphasizes its full happiness. Happiness or Glückseligkeit is one of the key notions in Fichte’s work; yet the emphasis on the complete congruency of happiness with morality, and therefore the deduction of God’s infinite happiness, blessedness, holiness, and so on offer a philosophical theology in which the being of God is put into a new light.24 Once, however, it turned out that Kant’s philosophy is easily used for the purposes of a philosophical theology, the great wave of German theology could not be stopped. Schelling and Hegel are to be seen in this context and their notions of revelation as self-revelation can be understood precisely as a development of Kantian philosophy. The great and enduring themes in Schelling’s works can be seen as offering a gradual explanation of the notion of self-revelation. His early emphasis on transcendental philosophy as covering the realm of nature was definitely the introduction of the philosophy of identity in which universal being is defined as the non-different or identical with nature and spirit. His last central subject matter, the nature of history and the gradual development of the divine as expressed in history, however, is the most important part of his notion of self-revelation. Reality is the expression of the divine and what we normally tend to consider as random history, especially the history of religion and mythology, must be seen as the conceptual and real development of divine being. Schelling, nevertheless, is a complicated thinker and he would never deny the full perfection of the divine in an abstract sense. What he seeks to explain is the fact that God is perfect in a sense we cannot properly construe. From the human point of view, God’s perfection is not that of a mathematical formula or a physical object, not even the intellectual activity by which one realizes truth. Yet God’s perfection is more closely related to the mental phenomena we know than to the physical ones, and in thinking it is always possible to have a deeper grasp of divine reality than what is given prima facie in

23 Like many in his time, Fichte imbibed an insight propounded by Goethe in the Faust where Faust revises the antique formula of the Gospel of John (“In the beginning was the Word”) and offers his own translation: “In the beginning was the Act!” From the point of view of a philosophy of revelation, the substitution of “Word” by “Act” (Tat) amounts to a revision of the ancient notion of revelation as a Word. Revelation, accordingly, is act, deed, fact, event, history. Cf. below Chapter 6, section 6, c. 24 Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, trans. Garrett Green (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 29–50.

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sense perception. It is philosophy’s great task to understand the divine to some extent and contribute thereby to a more proper understanding: indeed, not only to our understanding of God but to the understanding of the divine in itself as well. Thinking of God is already God’s thinking of himself, and by thinking properly of the divine, we have the possibility of a deeper understanding of what takes place in God and what is given as his revelation. The theosophical dimension of such a philosophy is obvious. Some of Schelling’s views of divine activity, especially the role of negativity or evil in divine self-fulfillment, are of a more special interest. In our present perspective, it suffices to reconstruct briefly the notion of revelation as self-revelation. It is beyond doubt that God, inasmuch as he reveals something, reveals himself. Thus creation is already revelation and the history of salvation, with all its complicated details, is revelation as well. Most importantly, the act of incarnation, death, and resurrection of the second person of the Trinity are revelations in a sense of disclosing the depths of divine being. If we want to have a more than fragmentary understanding of revelation, the entire fate of the creation and history must be seen as the expression of God’s revelation, an expression disclosing divine reality in the full sense. Divine self-disclosing culminates in the fulfillment of all things in the Last Judgment, and this fulfillment is rightly seen as the fulfillment of divine self-revelation. This self-revelation is not merely about the fall and redemption of human beings or nature; it is about God himself, because God is deeply involved in the drama of creation by his self-sacrificing love. If nothing else, this self-sacrificing love is disclosed in revelation and inasmuch as love is God, the revelation of love is the revelation of God’s innermost being. In this revelation creation and especially human beings are intimately involved and thereby history and culture are involved as well. In other words, revelation as self-revelation is in fact a disclosure of divine being in itself and in its economy, that is, history and culture. At the same time, we cannot overcome the perspective of revelation and have a perspective which is external to it. We are part and parcel of this revelation: we are in it and for it. As a consequence, a totally rational understanding of revelation cannot be given, because we understand revelation already on the basis of its fact. While the nature of self-revelation can be seen to some extent—and not only as a sheer description of biblical and doctrinal contents but also as an interpretation of them—we remain blind to the ultimate reality of revelation in its divine fullness. Schelling emphasizes the notion of the Unvordenkliche in some of his works: The Unvordenkliche or “unprethinkable” expresses the genuine reality of God which one cannot think of because it precedes any framework thinking necessary presupposes. The unprethinkable, nevertheless, is construed as a negative force with respect to any positive, revelation itself included, and thus it reveals a deeper meaning of revelation and a deeper meaning of what can be conceived of.25 In other words, theosophy is incomplete for Schelling and the power of the

25 See especially F. W.  J. Schelling, The Ages of the World, trans. Jason M. Wirth (New York: State University of New York Press, 2000), pp. 12–30.

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human mind is never thought of as an unlimited capacity of scrutinizing the divine. In the perspective of self-revelation, God’s self-revealing activity remains an ultimate fact for Schelling. If we disregard many of his “Gnostic” tendencies, we still have an important material in Schelling’s thought that can be appreciated as theologically and philosophically valuable achievements which need not be mixed up with theosophical exaggerations.26 The difference between Hegel’s universal history of Spirit and Schelling’s philosophy of revelation can be found, in my view, in the latter’s emphasis on divine supra-rationality. It is beyond question that the universal history as divine selfrealization in Hegel’s thought does not let us devalue his thought. We cannot reduce Hegel to a pantheist and claim, in accordance with his contemporary or later simplifiers, that the divine is actually the human and the history of salvation is just another name for human history. As perhaps the most sophisticated philosopher of Western history, Hegel’s thought does not allow such a superficial interpretation. The history of salvation is indeed the expression of divine being in its historical dimension, but this expression is defined by the freedom of God himself and not by human necessities. Divine providence determines human history and such providence expresses the real life of the divine in itself.27 Hegel nevertheless presupposes a too narrow relation between human and divine rationality. While this rationality is very far from a down-to-earth rationalism of everydayness, we are not convinced that the dialectical complications of divine rationality properly express the important differences between the divine and the human spirit, or again that the mystery of the Holy Trinity can be reduced to the Trinitarian structures of mind and history. Nonetheless, just as with Schelling, it appears more fruitful to focus on Hegel’s great discoveries than on his one-sided views. If we want to acknowledge the real achievements of philosophers, we should always be prepared for the task of a proper interpretation. Given the Catholic Church’s insistence on the propositional model of revelation during the nineteenth century, it is important that the notion of self-revelation found its way into the document Dei Filius of the First Vatican Council.28 The text of the 26 See especially F. W. J. Schelling, Historical-Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology, trans. Mason Richey and Markus Zisselsberger (New York:  State University of New York Press, 2007). 27 G. W.  F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1977). 28 It is almost certain that this shift was influenced by Hegel’s understanding of Christianity as “revelatory religion,” expressed, for instance, in the following paragraph: “From this it follows that God can be known or cognized, for it is God’s nature to reveal himself, to be manifest. Those who say that God is not revelatory do not speak from the [standpoint of the] Christian religion at any rate, for the Christian religion is called the revealed religion. Its content is that God is revealed to human beings, that they know what God is. Previously they did not know this; but in the Christian religion there is no longer any secret—a mystery, but not in the sense that it is not known. For consciousness at the level of understanding or for sensible cognition it is a secret, whereas for reason it is

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council—for the first time in Latin theology—speaks emphatically of God’s “revealing himself,” revelare seipsum. As suggested above, this expression has a biblical basis, especially the passage on Samuel’s Call.29 It can be added that another verse in the Letter to the Ephesians gives further weight to this terminology. As we read, “[T]he God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ . . . has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ” (Eph. 1:9). Here it is not “self-revelation” in the strict sense that comes to the fore but rather “the mystery of his will” and “his purpose”—another expression for will, choice, desire, εὐδοκία—which “he set forth.” In other words, God’s revelation in Christ is the revelation of his inner purpose, which is indeed a notion fairly close to “self-revelation,” as Dei Filius formulated it. Since its emergence in the nineteenth century, the notion of self-revelation has become a common expression in philosophy and theology. Its meaning, however, remained manifold. While most of the authors rejected the notion of self-revelation in the sense of Schelling or Hegel as not only pantheistic but also theosophical— claiming excessive knowledge about God’s inner life—“self-revelation” today is normally understood along the lines of traditional dogmatic propositions. God has revealed himself in a limited form in the creation (general revelation), in the history of salvation, but especially in Jesus Christ (special revelation) and the latter’s Last Judgment (the fulfillment of special revelation). Self-revelation has thus a three-dimensional form in accordance with the three tenses and the three persons of the Trinity, which constitute one absolute whole.

4. The Model of Self-Revelation The grammatical and historical overviews of the notion of self-revelation have shown that self-revelation has an important philosophical and theological content, namely, the role of the “self,” God’s peculiar reality. That is shown already by the grammar of the expression. On that level, the meaning of self-revelation is twofold: on the one hand, it is about an immediate disclosure in which the nature of the disclosure shows itself; on the other hand, it is about the subject or the agent of the act of this disclosure, which reveals its nature by the act of revealing. In the first case, self-revelation is revealing itself as revelation; in the second case, it reveals an agent, a subject which carries out the act of self-revelation. In the first case, again, it is a pure act in which form and content are fused; it is merely the self-revelation of self-revelation. In the second case, however, form and content are distinguished, since the agent as “self ” receives an emphasis.

something manifest.” Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Peter C. Hodgson, trans. R. F. Brown, P. C. Hodgson et al. (Berkeley : University of California Press, 1984), Vol. I, p. 382. 29 The Vulgate translation of 1 Sam. 3:21 says only: “Et addidit Dominus ut appareret in Silo quoniam revelatus fuerat Dominus Samuheli in Silo.”

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Let me call the first pattern “direct self-revelation,” for there is no mediation in its unity of form and content; its form and content are merged. Even the expressions “merged” or “fused” may be misleading here as they suggest as if there were in some sense two parts of this act, a form and a content, an external and an internal dimension. In reality, however, in this first sense of self-revelation there are no separate parts, dimensions, aspects, or moments; self-revelation is pure auto-disclosure, mere and full display of revelation as revelation. I term the second pattern “indirect self-revelation.” Here the subject or agent is already discerned in an articulate form as that which performs the act of revelation. If there is a subject, there is an activity of this subject, the act of self-revealing. The object of this act is the subject itself. In indirect self-revelation there is no other factor than the subject and its activity which contains the subject as its object. There is a relation between the subject and its act which is undefined or seen merely in terms of the subject or the activity of the subject. This relation needs to be expressed in a more articulate way, but on this level of indirect self-revelation our attention is merely focused on the fact of the subject and its activity, which contains the subject as its object. Inasmuch as we speak of “God’s self-revelation,” we can consider these patterns valid. The direct self-revelation of God refers to God’s absolute actuality in himself where absoluteness is seen in its absolute unity. Absolute absoluteness, as it were, allows no distinction, or if it does, then these distinctions are seen in God’s absolute unity as disclosed in God’s direct self-revelation. On the other hand, it belongs to the “nature” of absoluteness that it does not only stand beyond all distinctions, but it also contains all distinctions, as its absoluteness would be empty otherwise. While we consider God’s direct self-revelation as a full unity, there is already the possibility in this unity to receive a certain distinction which is articulated on the level of indirect self-revelation. It would be misleading to pretend that the existence of this original distinction is dependent on our point of view. Obviously, the question is of an extraordinary importance, since it touches upon the origin of our notions of God, revelation, and self-revelation. From the metaphysical viewpoint, this question is the question of a beginning. Already by formulating our question concerning the origin of a beginning we find ourselves in a circle: the question of an absolute beginning, the beginning of distinction in pure absoluteness is prefigured precisely in the fact that we deal with a notion or a concept of absoluteness here. The very notion or the concept of absoluteness in its pure meaning presupposes, however, the distinction between absoluteness as it is in itself on one hand, and absoluteness as it is expressed on the other. We realize that absoluteness is such that it expresses itself. The concept of absoluteness is made possible by an original expression, that is, self-revelation. Nevertheless, the fact that we have found ourselves in this circle does not mean that we have no understanding of what is beyond the circle. If we had no such understanding, we would not be able to conceive of the fact that our first question led us into a circle. For to recognize a conceptual (philosophical, logical) circle presupposes a standpoint beyond this circle or a viewpoint in which the circle becomes conceptually (philosophically, logically) discernible. The existence of this

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viewpoint, however, leads us to the recognition that the circle, in which we find ourselves, belongs in some way to the “nature” of absoluteness; and indeed we may say that God is self-revealing in itself if and only if this original self-revelation fits in with the absolute freedom of absoluteness. It belongs to this absolute freedom that it freely expresses itself in such a way that an original distinction can emerge in it, a distinction which leads to the development of two basic sorts of self-revelation, the direct and the indirect. I  am not able to conceive anything “deeper” in God’s absolute self-revelation than the absolute freedom out of which a distinction arises. That is what makes it possible to speak of self-revelation in the first place. One may say that the philosophical and theological legitimacy of such a philosophical theology is doubtful, even if its logical consistency is convincing. How can we argue, then, for its philosophical and theological legitimacy? I emphasize that the fundamental questions of revelation cannot be raised explicitly from the strictly theological point of view, for revelation is presupposed by theology properly so-called. Philosophy, however, is the realm of reason which does not make it possible that a pure philosophy may investigate questions beyond its traditional scope. Nevertheless, philosophical theology in its nonstandard, radical form is a consideration which we presuppose already by reflecting on the possibility of speaking of divine revelation in a non-theological manner. When theology recognizes its limitations, then it anticipates a form of consideration which deals with the realm that is outside the limits of theology. As I  argued above, this consideration is philosophical theology, especially radical philosophical theology in the framework of the fact of revelation. This approach establishes the philosophical and theological legitimacy of speaking of God’s self-revelation as direct and indirect, or of the original distinction in this self-revelation which emerges by virtue of the absolute freedom of God. The model of self-revelation can be defined as a model of absolute unity. Its fundamental features are the direct and the indirect self-revelation. In direct selfrevelation God is absolutely and freely its own expression; in the indirect selfrevelation God appears as the unity of form and content. The form is revelation as an act of God, and the content is God’s self. God himself makes himself revealed in indirect revelation. Viewed from a different angle, indirect revelation allows us to have a starting point in our discussion of revelation. Since it has the distinction between form and content, and since its content is the “self,” we are granted the possibility of understanding to some extent what this self consists in. A  proper understanding of the self leads us to a better understanding of what “revelation” of the self is, that is to say, how the meaning of revelation changes when it is about self-revelation. However, direct revelation is immediately present in every aspect of indirect self-revelation. Self-revelation as the absolute revelation of revelation permeates the structure of indirect self-revelation and makes it possible to recognize the former in the latter. It is an essential feature of the model of self-revelation that it integrates the direct and indirect aspects in a dynamic unity, since this model is indeed the unified model of revelation. It is nevertheless equally important to emphasize

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that, without the structure of indirect revelation, direct revelation would be empty, and without direct self-revelation, indirect self-revelation would be blind. It is the direct form which gives the fundamental meaning of self-revelation, and it is the indirect form which supplies us with a structure. The model therefore is again interactive, integral, and unified; and most importantly it is open to the ultimate fact of revelation. The model of self-revelation does not only entail the direct and the indirect dimensions, it entails also all other, and likewise all possible, models of revelation we discussed above. Self-revelation as a dynamic unity comprises doctrine, history, inner experience, dialectical presence, and new awareness. Above all, self-revelation offers itself as an overarching model of revelation with all possible aspects we can add to the list. It is a model of dynamism and freedom, openness and change, since it contains possible aspects we are not yet aware of. It is at the same time a fact in the richest sense of this word; self-revelation is not only word or deed, it is a living fact. Self-revelation is open to the future and the discovery of the richness that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived” (1 Cor. 2:9).

5. Self and Unity Direct self-revelation is the revelation of revelation, the revelation of the fact that revelation is revelation, that revelation is divine self-disclosing. Self-revelation as the revelation of the self is indirect revelation, since it has a structure. In every indirect revelation the fact of revelation as revelation is given and thus, as mentioned, indirect revelation contains the fundamental layer of direct self-revelation. Indirect self-revelation, nevertheless, offers the structured content, and here I  investigate the question of this content, the self in self-revelation. We need to enter here some aspects of Trinitarian theology insofar as we need to understand the self of self-revelation. Self-revelation as God’s revelation refers above all to the oneness of God, and thus the first approach to the notion of self-revelation discloses the problem of divine unity. In Christianity, the notion of divine unity or oneness has been beyond any doubt from its proper beginnings. The apparently most pressing questions concerned the nature of the Trinity in its unity and plurality which resulted in the traditional formula of God being one essence or substance (ousia) and, at the same time, three persons (hypostaseis). “Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity” is the classic formula which can be found in the writings of a number of Christian authors, but most importantly in the so-called Athanasian Creed (Quicumque vult).30 When it comes to the meaning of unity or essence, the text gives a rather negative interpretation of what unus Deus or unitas mean. Divine unity is “not divided,” its divinity is one: not three uncreated, not three infinites, not three almighties, not three 30 Today, scholars do not ascribe the text Quicumque vult to Saint Athanasius (296– 373), although it is acknowledged that the main claims of the text are derivative of the work

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Gods, not three Lords.31 The divine is one essence (substantia) without mixing up the persons (neque confundentes personas). At the same time, divine unity cannot be thought properly without divine plurality and divine plurality cannot be properly conceived without divine unity. It follows that the Christian notion of unity is not a theological application of a mathematical notion. It is rather a theological “number” expressing the absolute source of everything in a paradoxical way. It is important that the theological notion of the Trinity was declared very early to be a “mystery,” which cannot be fully understood by the finite mind. This mysterious character is expressed by the formula “Unity in Trinity and Trinity in Unity”—that is to say, it is a unity that cannot be conceived without trinity and vice versa. Still, divine essence or substance calls for an understanding inasmuch as it is possible in the framework of a radical philosophical theology. Let me follow two authors here: Dionysius the Areopagite and Thomas Aquinas in order to outline the traditional problem. Dionysius’s understanding of divine unity is often quoted as the heart of “negative” or “apophatic” theology. From Tertullian through the Cappadocian Fathers to Augustine, Dionysius, and Thomas Aquinas, negative theology had a central role to play in the meaning of divine unity. The phrase by Augustine Si comprehendis, non est deus (if you understand, it is not God) became a maxim expressing the point in negative theology.32 Nevertheless, the wording and perhaps the meaning of Dionysius is somewhat different. In Mystical Theology, his shortest yet central work in this respect, God is called “supergod” (ὑπέρθεὸς), “who is above every essence and knowledge,” “superessential” (ὑπερούσιος), in itself “the not to see nor to know” (ἀβλεψίας καὶ ἀγνωσίας). It is important to quote a passage from the closing section of the same work: It is not soul or mind, nor does it possess imagination, conviction, speech or understanding. It cannot be spoken of it cannot be grasped by understanding. . . . It is not immovable, moving, or at rest. It has no power, it is not power, nor is it light. It does not live nor is it life. It is not a substance, nor is it eternity or time. It cannot be grasped by understanding since it is neither knowledge nor truth. It is not kingship. It is not wisdom. It is neither one nor oneness, divinity nor of the Alexandrian author. The text was probably created in the school of Vincent of Lérin in the first decades of the fifth century. 31 Boethius also writes that “[t]he principle of this union [of the Trinity] is the absence of difference.” Boethius, On the Trinity. See, The Theological Tractates (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 7. 32 Augustine, Sermo 117, 3.5 (Patrologia latina 38:663): “De Deo loquimur, quid mirum si non comprehendis? Si enim comprehendis, non est Deus. Sit pia confessio ignorantiae magis, quam temeraria professio scientiae” (We talk about God: why are you surprised if you don’t understand? If you understand it, it is not God. Let the pious confession of ignorance be greater than the recklessness of the confession of knowledge.)—Translation is my own.

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goodness. . . . It is not Sonship, nor Fatherhood; . . . Darkness and light, error and truth—it is none of these. It is beyond assertion and denial. We make assertions and denials of what is next to it but never of it, for it is beyond every assertion being the perfect and unique cause of all things, and, by virtue of its preeminently simple and absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation; it is also beyond every denial.33

“Negative theology,” in this conception, appears to be rather a theology which is neither negative nor positive. These lines suggest not only a denial of every positive property but also a denial of the negative properties; they suggest a denial of denial itself. As to what the author, who used the name of the biblical Dionysius (Acts 17:34), wanted to express by his paradoxical assertions may not be possible to explain as it belongs to the realm of mysticism. Yet it is important to realize that the author speaks about the divine essence in this paradoxical fashion, an essence which is “beyond God” and every possibility of expression; the author, nevertheless, does attempt to express its negativity in a positive way. Thereby he helps his readers realize that divine unity or essence is not something the human mind can conceive, but is an ultimate, underlying, and overarching reality. Negative theology, thus, may be negative in many of its propositions, but the meaning of this negative approach is clearly positive, since it does speak about the unspeakable and does transfer information of the agnosia, the not-to-know. I find here a peculiar realism which appears to be self-refuting; and by being self-refuting it confers on its readers information about the essence of God as an essence ultimately and genuinely real. This reality is approached by Thomas Aquinas in a characteristically different way.34 While Thomas accepts the thesis to the effect that “God, in his excellence, is for us unknown,”35 he offers a fundamentally different way to the partial understanding of God’s unity in the Summa contra gentiles. His starting point is the likeness or analogy between nature and God, or between the various levels of generation in nature and human beings and God’s peculiar generation of the Trinitarian persons. As he writes, nature offers a hierarchy of emanation or generation from the inanimate to the animate up to human beings. While in nature

33 Pseudo-Dionysius, De mystica theologia, V (Patrologia Graeca 3:1045d.1048b), trans. Colm Luibheid in: Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), p. 141. 34 See also Gilles Emery, O.P., The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, trans. Francesca Aran Murphy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 35 “Deus, qui propter sui excellentiam est nobis ignotus.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I–II, q.  112, a.  5. All Latin references to the Summa Theologiae follow:  St Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae, 61 vols (Cambridge:  Cambrdige University Press, 2006). English translations where not otherwise noted follow:  Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 5 vols (Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1981).

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generation is the bringing forth of something physically different from the parents, human beings have a higher level of generation in their mind, namely, the emanation or generation of intention or inner word, that is, concepts: The supreme and perfect grade of life which is in the intellect, for the intellect reflects upon itself and the intellect can understand itself.36 . . . Since in God, therefore, being and understanding are identical, the intention understood in Him is his very intellect. And because understanding in Him is the thing understood (for by understanding Himself He understands all other things, as was shown in Book I), it follows that in God, because He understands Himself, the intellect, the thing understood, and the intention understood are all identical.37

God’s unity is intellectual in which the understanding, the intention of understanding, and the thing understood form a perfect oneness. The problem of simplicity may be addressed here by pointing out that if God is identical with all these properties, he is a property as well. However, we need to take into account that God, by his absoluteness, can be identical with aspects or modes of his absoluteness in a way a finite being cannot. God is identical with his intellect and understanding, and can be understood in his absolute unity, in his essence (which subsists in three persons) without being confined to any of these modes or without these modes as such becoming identical with God. The unity of God is closely related to the problem of God as Trinity. God’s unity in the Trinitarian perspective is addressed as what is common to the three persons of the Trinity. What is common is constitutive of divine unity, and what is proper is constitutive of the persons. According to Thomas, the common in God, that is, his essence, is known to us in a general way before we understand the proper terms of the Trinitarian persons. We understand what “God” means before we understand that God is three persons. In other words, we have an understanding of divine unity without the understanding of the persons, because [c]ommon terms taken absolutely, in the order of our intelligence, come before proper terms because they are included in the understanding of proper terms, but not conversely.38

In other words, Thomas argues on a logical basis that we understand divine unity in a way preceding the understanding of divine plurality. This kind of argumentation is again similar to the above one concerning divine unity. Just as human understanding realizes the unity of particular mental processes, divine unity is realized in a similar, yet divinely different way, in its various operations. We may add that this unity is realized through the inner activities of the Trinity (being,

36 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra gentiles, IV.5. 37 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, IV, 11, sec. 7. 38 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, q. 33, a. 3, ad 1.

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generation, procession) and through the relations among the Trinitarian persons in such a way that a perfect unity is arrived at. Not only must the immanent Trinitarian dimensions be taken into account in this respect, but also the economy of salvation which is equally integrated in the absolute unity of God.39 This absolute unity can be termed intentional, because in our picturing this unity we use as the key factor God’s self-understanding in the workings of divine intentionality. Divine intentionality does not refer to a particular thing outside God, or to the intention itself of that particular thing, but rather to God’s selfunderstanding as it is realized in God’s absoluteness. Thomas conceives this absoluteness in analogy of the human intellect, its intentional nature, and he considers the priority of our knowledge of the unity of God again on the basis of logical preferences. Without following the otherwise intriguing question as to the roots of the modern problem of intentionality in Thomas Aquinas,40 let me connect his understanding of God’s unity to that of Dionysius. For Dionysius, the unity of the supergod is a unity paradoxically beyond comprehension. For Thomas, the same comprehension, if it is achieved by human beings, is limited, although it is not entirely impossible. In particular, for Thomas, it is human self-understanding that serves as a model of divine self-understanding which realizes unity. In our perspective, we may ask whether Thomas’s intellectual view of divine unity is without a challenge. It is challenged by the problem of analogy implied here, since it belongs to the notion of analogy that, as the Fourth Lateran Council formulated, it can be applied to things divine with a certain restriction. Such a restriction consists in that, as compared to the similitude between earthly and divine things, the dissimilitude between them is nonproportionally greater: [B]etween the Creator and the creature no similitude can be expressed without implying a greater dissimilitude (maior dissimilitudo).41

There is, according to this view, a “greater dissimilarity” between the human and the divine intellects, or again, there is a “greater dissimilarity” provided by the fact that God is beyond human comprehension. Still, Thomas’s view applies the information we have from nature and human beings unto the unity of God.

39 Without going into the details of Trinitarian theology, it must be recalled that the knowledge of the Trinity, according to the Christian understanding, is revealed by the persons of the Trinity. The Trinity is known through the person of Jesus and the Spirit. The Lamb of God is recognized as sharing the throne of God (Rev. 5:6). Thus, the understanding of who God in reality is, that is, his specific yet full unity, is known to us through a realized plurality, such as Thomas’s recognition of God in Christ (Jn 20:28: “My Lord and my God!”). 40 For which see Mezei, Religion and Revelation, part I, chapter  3, on Theistic Intentionality. 41 Lateran IV, Constitutions, 2. De errore abbatis Ioachim (DS 806).

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Following this kind of argument, and taking into account the “greater dissimilarity” necessarily involved in such an argument, we can say that it is not the intellect and its functions that characterize a human person in its personal core. It is rather the awareness that human persons possess genuine, sui generis, irreplaceable, and unrepeatable uniqueness. This uniqueness, which plays a central role in the present understanding of self-revelation, can be properly denoted as the ultimate core of human personhood, the human self. I understand here the notion of the self not as referring to a particular empirical human identity, but rather as the human identity sui generis. The central feature of being a self is self-possession in an essential sense, for instance, in the sense that we are normally aware of ourselves as ourselves and not being anybody else than just ourselves (myself). Can we change Thomas’s intellectual analogy to an analogy based on the self? I am aware of myself in a number of ways, for instance, as having a body, working on this text, sitting on the fourth floor of my hotel, being physically in the state of Indiana, and so on. But most essentially I am aware of myself as myself, as I mentioned, as not being anybody else than myself in an essential way that is at the root of our being as a person. It is not only difficult to construe what it is like to be a bat (to refer to Thomas Nagel’s famous analogy), but it may be impossible in the way I  conceive of myself:  in the absolute and absolutely direct understanding of myself as myself. I  conceive of other human persons on the basis of the selfsameness (Husserl’s notion of analogical appresentation) not in a rational analogical procedure but in an indirect and full grasp. If analogy is understood mechanically, my understanding of myself as myself cannot be properly applied to anybody else. But if it is understood as a direct grasp of selfsameness, it may not be analogical at all, but rather an immediate understanding of selfsameness. In a similar way, we may understand divine selfsameness in a direct fashion. There may not be any other way open for us if we want to understand to some extent divine unity. In the case of other human beings, we have analogical possibilities, such as the fact of other people’s having a body, using a language, or showing facial expressions. In the case of the divine, as it were, we do not have such possibilities, because divine unity is not a prima facie physical or a communicative unity. Rather, divine unity is ultimate and unmediated. We conceive of this unity not in a gradual way, applying rational procedures, but in an immediate fashion with respect to the selfsameness unity of ourselves. We conceive divine selfsameness as the source of our selfhood, as the selfsameness infinitely distinct and yet permeating our selfsameness. We conceive that God is self, the full possession of his own being in an absolute sense. God is selfsame, his selfhood is what constitutes his absolute unity; his selfhood is what is prima facie revealed in self-revelation. Here it is not my task to argue for “the existence” of God. It is nevertheless important to see that every analogy presupposes the primordial notion of the moments of analogy. The ultimate target of analogy is initially blurred or latent. Yet in order to conceive it as clearly as possible, we have to possess this notion in

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a latent form so that we can apply an analogy. Thomas’s discussion of the analogy between the natural and the supernatural contains a number of analogies in nature and the human mind; it concludes in an analogical way to the kind of divine unity and plurality. This latter, however, must be primordially or a priori present for us in a latent form so that we may conceive it in a more explicit way. Thomas’s analogy is thus a way to discover what is already there directly. He presupposes not only the latent notion of the divine, but also the validity of analogy for the notion of the divine. This primordial notion, nevertheless, is not any notion one possesses; it is the absolute notion of God to which the Dionysian “negative theology” applies. This way is not merely negative, as I mentioned, for its seemingly negative character hides the positive moment of the factual expressing and conceiving of the inconceivable. This way, therefore, also presupposes the primordial notion of the absolute. Dionysius is more explicit in pointing out the fact, nevertheless, that no such notion is attainable by the mind if not by the characteristic activity of the reality of the notion itself, that is to say, the activity of the divine. In other words, it is divine revelation which supplies us with its own notion in a sense, and it is self-revelation itself that makes it possible that we conceive not only of the fact of revelation but also of the fact of the self of this revelation. If we need to overcome the cosmological view, it is not the analogy that is to be abolished. Rather we have to understand better the workings of the analogy in our case, beyond the analogies we normally and naturally use in everyday communications and perceptions. We need to understand that the notion of the divine—the reality of the divine—is not possible for us to conceive, not even in an inconceivable way, if not by the activity of the divine itself. And this is not only a truth valid for the supernatural realm, but also for the natural or unassisted workings of the mind. Even the “unassisted” understanding of God is assisted in a latent—and nonproportional—sense. That is the only way to understand that we possess the notion of God’s ultimate unity, the notion of God, and especially God’s absolutely self-identical selfhood. Here we may already see the truth expressed in the motto of the present work: “When you think these things, it is the word of God in your heart.”42

42 It is worth quoting the original text a little longer in order to see Augustine’s meaning: “Quid est ergo illud in corde tuo, quando cogitas quandam substantiam vivam, perpetuam, omnipotentem, infinitam, ubique praesentem, ubique totam, nusquam inclusam? Quando ista cogitas, hoc est verbum de Deo in corde tuo” (What is there in your heart when you think of a substance which is living, perpetual, omnipotent and infinite, which is present indeed everywhere and not detained by anything? When you think of these things, it is the word of God in your heart; my translation). “Hoc est verbum de Deo” may be translated as “it is the word from (or about) God”; however the previous passage makes it clear that Augustine thinks that to conceive God is the—always nonproportional—self-expression of God in our thought. See Augustine, Io. ev. tr. CXXIV (Patrologia latina 35:1383).

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6. Self and Persons Divine oneness, unity, or being is distinguished from the three persons of the Trinity. “Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity” do not abolish the internal distinctions and relations between persons and unity. Unity or divine oneness is not an additional person to the persons of the Trinity. It is precisely unity or oneness that is communicated to the persons, and the persons—while being different in their being a person—are unified in divine unity. Self-revelation in the direct sense is the fact of divine unity being communicated to the persons, and self-revelation in the indirect sense is revelation of the divine self in the persons as persons. The traditional distinction between hypostaseis and ousia claims that the persons are of one ousia or being, and they are distinct as hypostaseis or persons. If divine oneness or being is understood as the divine self, it is not identical with the persons of the Trinity. The self appears as a person inasmuch as it is being revealed internally in the three ways traditionally maintained: the Father is ungenerated, the Son is generated, and the Spirit is processed. The Father is the “first,” the Son the “second,” and the Spirit is the “third” inner revelation of the divine self, while the numbers here do not entail any numerical order, not to say subordination; one, two, and three are absolute denotations here and their inner relations are absolute as well. Divine self-revelation has thus an internal and fourfold structure, while this structure is fully one in the unity of the self of self-revelation. Divine oneness is pure selfhood or selfsameness. The Father is ungenerated oneness or selfhood, that is, the pure form of indirect self-revelation. The Son is generated oneness or selfhood, and the Spirit is oneness or selfhood processed from the Father and the Son. God’s pure self is in itself, but it is internally and entirely revealed in the three forms of indirect self-revelation thus realizing not only the three persons but also their selfsame identity as God. In this approach, selfhood and personhood are different—just like being and persons are internally different in the framework of their unity. The approach I  apply here understands God’s selfhood as the core being of the divine, and it understands God’s triple personhood as the eternal and internal self-revelation of God. Self is revealed as a person; self and person are different yet they are one in the common unity of God. The persons are selves just as they are given in the internal self-revelation of God, and God in himself is self, absolute selfhood that subsists in three persons. God, ultimately, is pure self-revelation and thus selfhood and personhood are internally related to one another. To be more precise, persons are revealed selves, while there is no dimension of the divine in which the divine self is not revealed internally into personhood. At the same time, we can still distinguish between God’s pure selfhood as constituting unity on the one hand and selfhood as communicated to persons on the other hand. While we conceive self as the inner core of the godhead, self is nevertheless such that it is revealed, and it is revealed in personhood. Can we find anything similar to the paradoxical unity and distinction of selfhood and personhood? Applying the analogy of Thomas in this context—and

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applying it under the important principle of the formula of the Fourth Lateran Council I quoted above—we can say that human selfhood and human personhood are distinct yet correlated dimensions of a human individual. There are authors, who use “self ” and “person” interchangeably, such as Charles Taylor.43 However, the words themselves and also their meanings are fairly different in a number of ways. Let me refer to the unique use of “self ” in English, which is only weakly repeated in other Germanic languages. “Self ” as a noun has become a very strong word with the general meaning of “a person’s essential being that distinguishes them from others, especially considered as the object of introspection or reflexive action.”44 In compounds, “itself,” “herself,” and similar expressions are widely and emphatically used.45 While it is true that “self ” and “person” are quite close to one another in the everyday language, we still see the obvious difference in that the first refers to the inner, autonomous dimension of self-identity and the second refers rather to the physically approachable and describable identity of a human individual. A human person is usually a physical person, a self however is the expression of his or her self-identity as this or that person. As to the history of selfhood, Charles Taylor delineates some important aspects of the development of “the modern self ” in his above mentioned work. What I find especially important in the development of selfhood in Western history is its ever stronger, ever more autonomous, more substantive meaning. As a result, a uniquely strong meaning of the self emerged gradually throughout the centuries until it has reached its present meaning, peculiar to the English usage, in which it has an ultimately yet intimately inner reference. Plato’s auto, the Latin ipse, the French soi-même, and the German Selbst are relatively far from the contemporary meaning of self. It is true that the development of the notion of the self cannot be detached from the wider development of Western culture, in which all central notions—God, world, soul, human being, person, and so on—have evolved through significant changes. However, the peculiar development of the self as the absolute inner core of an individual can be detected most conspicuously in the Anglo-American developments. One of the most important factors in this development has been the English common law tradition defining the rights of individuals. Protestantism, especially Puritanism, which emphasized individual human persons in their relationship to God and society, contributed to the further strengthening of the meaning of the “self.” Pure, narcissistic, sometimes destructive individualism has been the negative form of the emerging self, yet selfhood in its irreplaceable, autonomous, and intimate meaning has become the determining outcome of this evolution. 43 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989). 44 See http:// www.oxforddictionaries.com/ us/ definition/ american_ english/ self (accessed February 19, 2015). 45 In www.thesaurus.com we find the following synonyms for “self ” as a noun: being, essence, quintessence, individuality, personality.

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The reason why German Selbstoffenbarung was easily translated and accepted in English was the previous development of the “self.” Self-revelation, accordingly, developed a more specific meaning. Selbstoffenbarung had its generic place in German philosophies of being. These philosophies understood Selbstoffenbarung not so much in terms of a specific being as rather in terms of the new interpretations of general or architectonic being. In Schelling, Selbstoffenbarung is the universal development of the divine self; and in Hegel it is the Spirit the development of which synthesizes and fulfills history and the godhead at the same time. The strength of this tradition lies in an ever deeper understanding of being, such as in the thought of the main representatives of phenomenology. The rediscovery of Sein, Being, by Martin Heidegger was a logical yet ingenious development of the tradition: Sein, in Heidegger’s account, is Being in its overarching and historic significance. This understanding led Heidegger to the development of the notion of Ereignis, event, as an ever deeper meaning of being: the event, in this sense, is not an isolated occurrence of empirical facts but an ur-event, an original and determining occurrence, a “big bang” as it were, which defines everything in its scope as its own aftereffect. As opposed this development, self-revelation is not about a new and universal ontology. Rather it is a possibility to rethink the divine and its revelational activity in terms of the unique self-identity given in the expression. “Self ” and “person” are thus characteristically different—while other traditions of personhood, such as French and German personalisms, had more generous and less defined notions of a person. But precisely the well-defined character of personhood in English has made it possible that a certain relation can be seen between selfhood and personhood. The essence of this relationship is that selfhood expresses or reveals itself in personhood. A person in this sense is the tangible revelation of selfhood. In an everyday situation this “revelation” may be just about an intention, a feature of an individual, or his or her education. In the sense we are more interested in here, however, personhood is the revelation of selfhood in a more essential way: personhood is the concrete form of selfhood, it is the disclosure of self-revelation. To use the terminology I have introduced so far: direct self-revelation is about the fact of revelation as revelation. Indirect revelation is self-revelation in the sense of revealing the self as the genuine unity of plurality. This self-revelation, however, is expressed in the concrete personal form, just as the self is expressed in a person in accordance with our experience. The person and the self are two concentric circles: in human beings, the inner circle, the self is closer to the center, while the outer circle, the person encompasses the inner one, the self. In the divine, the two circles entirely overlap (yet they are distinct); in human persons there is only a partial overlapping. Selfhood is such that it has personhood, and personhood is such that it has its own selfhood. Selfhood is the very self of the divine, the unity in plurality, while personhood is the radical expression of selfhood, unity, in its plurality. In this sense, self-revelation is revelation of personhood. It reveals the self, the peculiarly unique being and unity of the divine. The divine is agnosia, yet just inasmuch as it is agnosia, it is at the same time gnosia, that is, it is conceivable even if

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not comprehensible. Thus, we need to see better the relationship between selfhood and personhood in revelation.

7. Radical Personhood Just as the birth of the self, the birth of personhood in the modern sense has been the result of a long development. This development can be described as leading from the composite view of personhood to the unified understanding of a person. The beginnings of the notion of personhood reach back to the biblical notion of panim (‫)פָּנִים‬, “face,” such as “the face of the deep” in the second verse of the Book of Genesis. Panim as the “face of God” (for instance, in Exod. 33:20) expresses the appearance of the ultimate divine identity; however, the face of human beings expresses derivative or created identity, an identity close to the individual personhood gradually formed throughout the centuries of Hellenism and Christianity.46 Panim was translated as prosopon (πρόσωπον) in the Septuagint; and the Greek conception of prosopon is the second important source of our contemporary notion of a human person. Prosopon (front, façade; outlook, countenance) meant also the “mask” or role of an actor in ancient Greek theater. This use referred to the view that the actors wearing a mask were in some way representative of, or even identical with, the gods in the play; it was actually the gods themselves that faced the audience through the mask of the actors. Human beings—especially in the Greek drama—were accordingly understood as representing, or even being identical with, the figures of the Greek pantheon. However, the fundamental meaning of prosopon as “outlook” is used in the New Testament Greek as well, such as in Mk 12:14 (“the person of men,” that is, their outlook); or in 1 Cor. 13:12 (seeing God “face to face,” πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον). The third source of our contemporary conception of human persons is the Latin persona, a word understood for a long time as if it had been an equivalent of prosopon. While Latin writers indeed used persona to translate prosopon, still the word is not formally related to prosopon.47 The Roman conception of individual personae as objects and subjects of the well-defined legal structures of the Roman state meant a substantial change in comparison with the conception of human person of earlier times. It is also noticeable that the history of Roman minting

46 In contemporary thought, Emmanuel Lévinas’s central notion of “face” (visage) has its obvious biblical source. On the notion of visage, see Chapter 6, section 6, d. 47 This popular etymology is based on Boethius’s Contra Eutychen et Nestorium, in Boethius, The Theological Tractates (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1973). Boethius himself used Aulus Gellius’s idea; but the word persona is probably of Etruscan origin referring to the name of an ecstatic god, Parsu. See, for example, George M.  A. Hanfmann, “Personality and Portraiture in Ancient Art,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 117, No. 4 (1973), p. 260.

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offers a different yet characteristic approach to the emergence of the notion of personhood. In Roman coinage, we witness a remarkable development in the featuring of the profile of Roman emperors especially between the second and the fifth centuries. The artistic value of this tradition lies in the fact that Roman minters were able to reach a realism unknown to earlier ages and unrepeated by subsequent ages before the emergence of modern European coinage in the sixteenth century. This realism found its expression in the most accurate and realistically portrayed faces of the emperors in such a way that the characteristic facial expression could be recognized. When Jesus looks at a Roman coin in the Gospel, he asks: “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” This question was natural enough given the realism of Roman coinage already in that age: the face of the emperor was clearly individual and recognizable.48 These three sources—the Hebrew panim, the Greek prosopon, and the Latin persona—deeply influenced the Trinitarian debates of the fourth and the fifth centuries in Christian theology which led to the emergence of a conception of divine persons in more concrete terms than had been characteristic of the understanding of Greek philosophy and theology.49 These debates and the resulting Trinitarian conception of the personal being of God was a substantial novelty as compared to the biblical conception of divine and human personhood. Boethius was not especially interested in defining human personhood, since his main concern was Trinitarian: he attempted to define personhood in the Trinity and especially the one personhood of Christ.50 The Latin persona, Boethius tells us, is the more or less precise equivalent of two Greek words, hypostasis and prosopon. Boethius points out that hypostasis is the perfect Greek expression of what the Latin persona came to refer to, although this reference can equally be made by using prosopon. Boethius wants to signal that the notion of “person” has to do with divine presence in a human being.51 That is the clue to the orthodox view of the one person of Christ:  the one, divine person is the expression of the presence of God in a human being, a presence not added to Jesus at a certain point of his life, but originally belonging to him in a way that proves to be salvific for what Boethius terms “human nature.”

48 See Mt. 22:20–21. Jesus considered the coin as a piece of possession of the person minted on it; similarly, he considered the human soul as the possession of the One that made it “in his own likeness.” The conclusion of the story in the Gospel is based on this parallelism: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt. 22:21). The underlying idea is that the portrait on the coin is just as clearly recognizable as God is on the soul. 49 See Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, pp. 79–100. 50 See especially Boethius, The Theological Tractates (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1973). 51 Boethius asserts that God as primum bonum is present in everything inasmuch it exists. Cf. Boethius, The Theological Tractates, pp. 50–1.

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Already the fact that Boethius considered also hypostasis as expressing the notion of a person shows that his understanding of personhood is not yet clearly formed. A human being does not have unity, i.e., it does not have persona by its own virtue. Boethius expresses this view by declaring that a human being is not a “substance”: Since man is not simply and entirely man, and therefore is not a substance after all. For what he is he owes to other things which are not man.52

Since a substance properly speaking is what is not composed of any parts,53 a human being is not a substance. When Boethius gives his definition of personhood, he does not mean human persons, but is referring to the divine persons of the Trinity. In his definition, a person is “an individual substance of rational nature.”54 Human beings are composite and are not entirely of a rational nature, and therefore they are not persons in the strict sense. The long development to the notion of modern personhood had to face the challenges inherited from this ancient use of personhood. Thomas Aquinas was one of the main contributors to this process. For Thomas, the problem of personhood appears—just as in Boethius—in a theological framework, and he asks if it is possible that there are three persons in God.55 His task is to defend the Trinitarian view and argue for the personal diversity of God. He has to show that the word “person” can be applied to the three persons of the Trinity in such a way that all the three hypostaseis can indeed be called a “person.” As he points out, a common name can be applied to its subjects in three ways. First by way of negation, when the common feature is what is denied to the ones named; second by way of intention, when we intend the particular individual in the act of naming them with one common name; and third by way of a concept (communitas rationis) when we refer to the common nature with a determination of the particular mode of existence. As to the first, we apply “person” in the sense that personhood is incommunicable and thus cannot be properly shared. As to the second, we apply the name of person so that it contains individuality, but that goes too far, because there are non-personal individuals. As to the third possibility, we understand by person a concept always accompanied by the specific determination of the mode of existence of the person referred to. This concept is both general and particular. It is by this concept that we call Peter or Paul a person, and it is by this ratio that we call the Father, the Son, and the Spirit “persons.” 52 Boethius, The Theological Tractates, p. 19. 53 Boethius, The Theological Tractates, pp. 33–5. 54 “Wherefore if Person belongs to substances alone, and these rational, and if every nature is a substance, existing not in universals but in individuals, we have found the definition of Person, viz.: ‘The individual substance of a rational nature.’ ” Cf. Boethius, The Theological Tractates, p. 84. 55 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, q. 30, a. 4.

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Thomas thus emphasizes the common and the concrete in personhood. He even claims that the definition of the person on the basis of negation is not sufficient, because a person is something positive.56 What appears just as important in our perspective is that Thomas was among the first thinkers that attributed an individual active intellect to each human being and thus contributed to a more proper understanding of human persons.57 Still he does not seem to have realized the difficulty of the unity of human persons if a human being is considered to be a compound.58 Among the influential thinkers René Descartes was the first to realize that the unity of human persons originates in the moment decisive for the whole human existence, in the ego cogito. Descartes is the father of transcendentalism, as Husserl termed his view, that is to say, the proper understanding of the unity of human beings as belonging to a realm qualitatively different from the physical-natural one, a realm on which the entire meaning of human existence is logically and ontologically dependent. The principle of the “I think” is the first unambiguous expression of the fact that a human being has a personal center possessing genuine self-identity; not even a malicious God can destroy the truth that if I think I am. Existence originates in the act of the “I think,” and the “I think” proves to be the corner stone of my whole mental and physical being.59 Transcendentalism may be termed not merely a philosophical school, as it were, but rather the main stream of the development of Western thought in which the genuine reality of human personhood has been gradually acknowledged. The most important known stations of this development have been the works of some of the leading philosophers: Locke, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, Nietzsche, Scheler, Husserl, and Heidegger. It seems, however, that the unity of a human being remains an

56 “Hoc nomen persona non est nomen negationis neque intentionis, sed est nomen rei,” Summa Theologiae, 1, q. 30, a. 4. 57 “Now what is said here has led some to conceive of the agent intellect as a separated substance, subsisting apart from the potential intellect. But this does not seem to be true; for human nature would be a deficient nature if it lacked any one of the principles that it needs for its naturally appropriate activity of understanding; and this requires both the potential and the agent intellects. Hence, complete human nature requires that both of these be intrinsic to man.” Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, trans. Kenelm Foster and Sylvester Humphries (New Haven:  Yale University Press, 1951), § 734, p. 168. In the Summa Theologiae Thomas uses abundantly the expressions intellectus creatus, intellectus noster, intellectus humanus as opposed to intellectus Dei or (more often) intellectus divinus. With respect to the divine intellect, however, human intellect is potential: while the divine intellect possesses every truth eternally, human intellect reaches only some truths within the finite realm. 58 See also Robert Spaemann, Das Natürliche und das Vernünftige. Aufsätze zur Anthropologie (Piper: München, 1987), pp. 26–9. 59 René Descartes, Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998), p. 63.

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open question for Locke and Hume, the former proposing an unsatisfactory view of the soul as a blank paper,60 and the latter being skeptical about personal unity. Where we can indeed find inventive philosophical solutions are the works of the German philosophers standing in the tradition of German Theology. Kant’s synthetic a priori and his emphasis on the ultimate character of persons; Fichte’s elaborating of the I of human beings as ultimate moments of reality; Hegel’s notion of the Spirit or Schelling’s philosophy of mythology in which a new, dynamic, and personal notion of reality is formed—these are original philosophical attempts which reformulated and universalized the problem of the unity of human beings. When philosophers of different interests attempted to criticize Hegel or Schelling, they—as, for instance, Ludwig Feuerbach or Karl Marx—began in fact with a radically different conception of anthropology reemphasizing the composite character of humans (Der Mensch ist, was er ißt, “Your nature is your nurture”),61 or developed an ontological reinterpretation (human beings are results of universal material processes, as Marx believed).62

60 See Husserl’s criticism in Edmund Husserl, Erste Philosophie I–II (1923/24), ed. Rudolf Boehm (Haag: M. Nijhoff, 1956–59), p. 75. 61 To put it simpler, “You are what you eat.” Cf. Ludwig Feuerbach, “Die Naturwissenschaft und die Revolution,” Gesammelte Werke (Berlin:  Akademie-Verlag, 1982), Kleinere Schriften III, Bd. 10, p. 358. My translation. 62 One of the interesting achievements here is Robert Spaemann’s understanding of human persons. See Robert Spaemann, Persons:  The Difference between “Someone” and “Something,” trans. Oliver O’Donovan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Spaemann is one of the few contemporary thinkers who have a unified understanding of human personhood as evolving from the Hellenistic and biblical sources and reaching new forms throughout the history of Western thought. For Spaemann, human persons are ultimate unities, a fact earlier thinkers did not see as distinctly as we do today. Yet human persons are necessarily embodied beings and their existence is to be construed within the limits of concrete physical nature. A disembodied human person is a contradiction for Spaemann. Thus it becomes difficult for him to give an account, for instance, of human persons being remembered as human persons. We consider past persons as genuine persons and we are under the influence of such persons in several ways. They have rights; they have dignity; they act on us and we see it problematic to deny genuine personhood to them, a personhood having more than just a past existence. Or again we look forward to having new persons in our world, persons not yet embodied, as, for instance, is the case of planning a family. We possess personal relations to past and future disembodied persons, relations possessing a strong legal and ethical dimension. Thus it seems that in Spaemann’s understanding of personhood the ultimate moment of being a person is not properly grasped on the basis of the unity of personhood but rather in the framework of an ontological conception. But this conception lacks the insight that human persons have a certain existence (but not a temporal preexistence) in God’s mind. In a nontheological fashion, we could formulate this point as referring to the ultimate character of human persons whose embodiment is a non-necessary dimension of their existence.

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There are two crucial developments in what I define as the birth of radical personhood. The one is Kant’s distinction between the price of nonhuman objects on the one hand, and the “inner value,” dignity, or “Würde” of human persons. Human persons are priceless; they have only dignity, which Kant defines as the absolute value of a moral being; such a value cannot be substituted but it is an end in itself.63 The other important step on the way to radical personhood is expressed in Fichte’s insistence on the unity of human personhood. As he writes in The Vocation of Man, A human being does not consist of two parts running parallel to each other, but is absolutely a unity.64

This unity of human persons is what is often described as their unrepeatability or incommunicability.65 A person, inasmuch as he or she is a person, cannot be genuinely repeated, cloned, or fully communicated. A human person is ultimately unique, and so a copy of a human person in a way that it replaces the original as original is not possible. The incommunicable character of a person refers not only to ineffability, that is to say, that the individual cannot be conceived in a general concept. It also refers to the absolute character of human personhood, since it is the absolute that as such cannot be put into a relation. “Incommunicability” refers, then, not simply to the lack of general concepts, but more importantly the lack of an extrinsic relation to what is incommunicable. When I use the expression of radical personhood, I refer to the result of the historical development of the notion of persons, that is, the realization of the absolute unrepeatability of personhood. A person is bound to his or her embodiment (even if this is just past or future embodiment). Yet a person cannot be repeated precisely in his or her ultimate personal identity. That is not only about a physical and social impossibility. It is not just about the fact that even if a human individual is cloned, as it were, one cannot produce such minutely identical circumstances in which he or she develops the same personality. Personhood is not only about personality, but is rather a kind of identity which ultimately distinguishes one person from any other by way of his or her inner core of being.

63 Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. and trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 42–3. It is important to see, however, that the Latin dignitas and its derivations in many contemporary languages do not easily express the notion of an “inner value” or “end itself ” as Kant defined them. Dignity refers, in its original contexts, to a hierarchy of functions in which the emphasis is on the function and its hierarchical place in a community or society. 64 Johann Gottlieb Fichte, The Vocation of Man, trans. Peter Preuss (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), p. 73. 65 John F. Crosby, Personalist Papers (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), p. 26.

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The problem of personal identity is manifold. It appears to be sufficient to point out here that the unity Fichte speaks about or the dignity Kant formulates are not about properties of a person but rather the person’s utmost identity as being precisely this person. Fichte’s recognition consists in his understanding of the unity of personhood, which entails that personhood is absolutely itself. Kant’s discovery of the fact that a person cannot be a means, only an end, refers to the same irreducibility and unrepeatability of human persons. Of course, neither Fichte nor Kant would deny that human persons are in some sense multiple (for instance, they have bodily parts) or that they can be used, or misused, as means in some respects. What they suggest is that human personhood in itself, in its inner core, in its essential nature is not multiple and ought not to be used as a means. Radical personhood is the understanding of the ultimate or absolute nature of human persons in their essential identity. They are radical in the sense that they represent the “root” (radix) of a personality, society, history, humankind. Radical personhood is the great discovery of modernity which has been further elaborated through the subsequent centuries by important thinkers and in a number of ways. Human personhood entails the transcendental ego, as Husserl formulated it; human personhood is the center of all conceivable ethical positions, as Scheler elaborated; human persons are persons of communication, as Martin Buber pointed out. Or again human persons form a network of communication, ontological and historical intersubjectivity, which makes personhood possible, as already Husserl and after him representatives of communication theory emphasized. A deconstruction of personhood has also been raised as a theoretical possibility according to which personhood is a mere linguistic, social, and historical construct which needs to be decomposed so that we free ourselves from the burden of a totalitarian history or the weight of oppressing political systems. In my approach, however, radical personhood is the expression of selfhood. As explained above, the self is “a person’s essential being that distinguishes them from others, especially considered as the object of introspection or reflexive action.” This essential being is indeed the core which becomes expressed in personhood. Radical personhood is the realization of the fact of the self ’s self-expression in personhood. If we reach back to the problem of selfhood in a Trinitarian context, we see that the emergence of the unified and absolute notion of personhood calls for an appropriate interpretation of the persons of the Trinity. This interpretation can be provided— precisely by way of the notion of selfhood. Persons are absolutes. They are not closed into themselves, however, but are related to one another in an important way. Persons indeed exist in personal relationships, in a network of various forms of communication, in a structure of intersubjectivity. Yet persons possess an identical core, the self which gives them the peculiar unity a person possesses. Trinitarian selfhood is communicated to Trinitarian personhood in such a way that the unity of the persons is maintained and, at the same time, the personal plurality is ensured. Radical personhood in its anthropological sense has been the result of a development determined by Trinitarian reflections,

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an entire Trinitarian culture of Western Christianity.66 What we find in the persons of the Trinity is indeed radical personhood in an essential sense, and from this soil there emerges anthropological personhood in its radical sense. In other words, the emphasis of modernity on personhood as ultimate, irreplaceable, and absolute can be seen as a consequence of the fundamental ideas we find in the original notion of the Trinity. It is certainly true that the work of centuries has been needed in order that personal unity, dignity, and absoluteness in the anthropological sense could evolve. In its present understanding, thus, the notion of radical personhood can be reintegrated into a Trinitarian theory.

8. Radical Personhood as kenosis Two problems remain for this chapter. First, we need to understand the proposition that “selfhood is such that it has personhood, and that personhood is such that it has its own selfhood.” Second, we will discuss what self-revelation looks like in the light of radical personhood. Selfhood is expressed in personhood. But what is the actual content of such an expression? Here I introduce the ancient notion of kenosis and apply its more developed understanding on the relationship between selfhood and personhood. The self as the essential being of a person is not fully determined by physical or mental necessity. Personhood is by definition free personhood, and whatever be the concrete physic-chemical parallels of the facts of human freedom, whatever be the constraints on the particular free decisions of a human being, freedom remains the very core of personhood. In which sense? There are particular acts of freedom, such as choosing this instead of that, for instance, in a sentence we pronounce in a given language, with certain words and with a certain number of words. Even if grammar, style, habit, social situation, personal mood, state of health, and so on may influence our choice, it remains true that a human person is always capable of choosing differently. If a certain product is advertised in accordance with a rigorously developed methodology, the expected number of buyers usually appears and in fact purchases the product. This does not mean, however, that buyers cannot and do not decide otherwise. In principle, and in many cases also in practice, they make a different decision and buy another

66 To mention again parallels from the history of arts, the widespread cult of the Holy Trinity, its artistic expressions in sculptures and paintings, was the achievement of Baroque art, that is, one of the important developments in the formation of modern personhood. Just compare the icon of the Holy Trinity painted by Andrei Rublev in the fifteenth century in Russia with the representations of the Trinity in Baroque art. The difference is obvious: in the latter we have the images of persons realistically depicted, an emphasis on embodied liveliness, characteristic difference, and the context of various communities. The entire modern cult of the Holy Trinity can be understood as an expression of the emerging and deeper understanding of personhood in its reality and relations.

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product or do not buy anything. Personal accountability is meaningless without personal freedom in the sense of a free choice; and a free choice is always such that, even if determined to a certain extent, it remains the matter of a given person and his or her responsibility. Free choice—actually, a pleonasm as an expression—is however rooted in the freedom of persons. Freedom is the capacity of choosing freely, a capacity expressing the radical nature of personhood. Freedom is the root of a choice, it is thus radical in the precise sense, and thus it characterizes the very core of personhood, the self. Selfhood is radical freedom, as we may say it clearly at this point. It is absolute unity, absolute self-identity, absolutely itself, not in the sense, however, of a divine absolute, but rather in the sense of natural absolutes as we find them, for instance, in mathematics, music, or aesthetics. Beauty has no “cause,” it is defined by itself, in its essence it cannot be reduced to components. We are capable of analyzing the structures of a piece of music by Mozart and understanding the way its beauty has been produced. Yet its beauty itself has an absolute autonomy which is not derived from its parts. It is an absolute in our experience. We see the absolute quality of the self of a person in an infinitely more emphatic fashion. A self is not merely individual, as every physical entity is given its time and space coordinates, inner composition, and external relations. A self is not merely singularity, that is, an occurrence with a particular structure and composition. A self is, rather, uniqueness, that is to say, an entirely unrepeatable and irreducible whole of absoluteness.67 This absoluteness is in its essence freedom. This freedom is a capacity yet an active and positive capacity of free choices. It is a constitutive capacity, because it makes up the very essence of selfhood. The development of selfhood on its historical trajectory is indeed the development of the realization of this essential freedom throughout the centuries. If selfhood is freedom in an essential sense, what is the main activity of the freedom of the self? Self-freedom, as it were, is above all the free identity of itself with itself, an identity not given naturally but only as the essential activity of selffreedom. Selfhood is freely identical with itself, but this means at the same time that selfhood is not naturally given but, in the particular sense, it freely chooses itself. Self-freedom is essentially freedom but it is also the free act of self-choice. Psychologically this notion is well represented by the development of personhood which, at a certain point in its growth, discovers its free identity and it freely identifies itself with itself. The adult person has this fundamental task of his or her freely choosing himself or herself as the fundamental act of maturity. The psychologically mature human person has this essential task of not wanting to be like any other person but accepting and choosing his or her self-identity as just this person and nobody else. We often hear that one needs to accept oneself with one’s limitations, failures, problems, and also with all the positive aspects of a person. However, the genuine act of self-acceptance does not consist in accepting particular features of a

67 On the difference between individuality, singularity, and uniqueness, see Miklos Vetö, L’élargissement de la métaphysique (Paris: Hermann, 2012), p. 141.

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personality. Rather it is about freely accepting oneself as oneself. All the other acts of acceptance are merely secondary, though not unimportant. However, if I do not freely choose myself as myself, then my admitting of problems, mistakes, or limitations remains superficial. In certain contexts, freedom may result in excessive individualism or in a deceitful will to differ from others in certain respects. Such excesses do not define personhood in its genuine freedom; genuine freedom is not superficial but essential and it has the fundamental task of embracing self-identity as the realized activity of selfhood—as being itself and freely choosing itself. Here it is important to distinguish between the ontological and the ethical. Ontologically, we are selves by virtue of the self ’s free acceptance of herself or himself. In the ontological sense, this acceptance is already performed yet it is at the same time open to further reiterations of ontological self-acceptance. Ethically, we ought to accept ourselves as ourselves in the perspective of realizing ourselves as ourselves. This second meaning of self-acceptance is about the psychological development of a human self from early childhood to maturity. Yet the basis of the development is the ontological fact of self-acceptance as the free act of the self as self. Ethical self-acceptance enriches, develops, and fulfills the ontological fact; and the ontological fact makes the ethical act of self-acceptance possible. Is there a possibility of a concrete self not to choose itself as itself? In principle, the self may choose another self as being its own selfhood, but this possibility does not concern the self ’s self-identity. Choosing to be another self is a contradiction which destroys selfhood in its selfhood. There remains, nevertheless, a possibility of the ultimate freedom of selfhood, namely, its renouncing itself as itself with respect to its specific realization. To be a person is to express selfhood; self is such that it expresses itself in personhood. This act leads not to the loss of selfhood but rather to its expression in personhood. The self, as it were, negates itself so that it can be expressed in personhood; it renounces its own self-contained selfhood so that it may appear in selfhood as communicated in personhood. The notion of kenosis refers to this ultimate act of selfhood becoming personhood as the result of self-freedom realized in the concrete act of kenosis. The Greek term of kenosis (κένωσις) has a multiple meaning related to emptiness, emptying, purging, depleting, or waning. Basically, kenosis is the process of purging, such as in the medical use of the word referring to the emptying or evacuation of the body. In the New Testament, the verb form κενόω means “making void,” “empty,” such as “the cross of Christ” (1 Cor. 1:17); or “deprive,” such as “deprive me of my ground for boasting” (the dispensation of the Gospel, 1 Cor. 9:15). Most importantly, the verb form is used in Phil. 2:5–11: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself (ἐκένωσεν), taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and

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under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

There are various important aspects of this text, such as the meaning and role of “a thing to be grasped” (ἁρπαγμός, “robbery”) or some parallels to the notion of Jesus’s self-emptying in other pieces of ancient literature.68 The most important interpretation of this text leads us to the “kenotic theology” of the past century, when such authors as Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jürgen Moltmann, or Hans Jonas argued for a complex understanding of kenosis as the theologically optimal description of the divine. John Paul II also declared that The prime commitment of theology is seen to be the understanding of God’s kenosis, a grand and mysterious truth for the human mind, which finds it inconceivable that suffering and death can express a love which gives itself and seeks nothing in return.69

The papal encyclical speaks about “God’s kenosis” thereby confirming the wider theological interpretation of Christ’s self-emptying as paradigmatic of the divine as a whole. The theological basis of such an enlarged interpretation of kenosis is the doctrine of communicatio idiomatum. As we shall see in the next chapter, this overall kenotic view of the divine is to be complemented by the apocalyptic dimension of the divine in which its eschatological fullness is revealed. My present purpose, however, concerns merely the way in which selfhood becomes personhood and personhood is related to selfhood. In the doctrine of kenosis, Jesus humbles himself yet thereby he does not lose the high status he acquired. Jesus is “in the form of God,” yet he does not insist on maintaining this form, because he does not consider it a possession or a robbery (“a thing to be grasped”). Inasmuch as being

68 Such as in Plato’s Timaeus 33b–d, where a passage describes the self-sufficient life of the universe: “And he [the demiurge] gave it a smooth round finish all over on the outside, for many reasons. It needed no eyes, since there was nothing visible left outside it; nor did it need ears, since there was nothing audible there, either. There was no air enveloping it that it might need for breathing, nor did it need any organ by which to take in food or, again, expel it when it had been digested. For since there wasn’t anything else, there would be nothing to leave it or come to it from anywhere. It supplied its own waste for its food. Anything that it did or experienced it was designed to do or experience within itself and by itself. For the builder thought that if it were self-sufficient, it would be a better thing than if it required other things” (Plato, The Complete Works, p. 1238). It is clear that the notion of kenosis is present in the text where the universe is described as supplying “its own waste for its food.” The concrete meaning of “waste” (φθίσιϚ) is clear enough given the words before: “nothing to leave it or come to it from anywhere.” Plato thus understood the universe as a selfsufficient system in which wastage is recycled as food; and the process of emptying is an organic part of this process. 69 John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, § 93.

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divine is not a “robbery,” it is precisely the opposite of a robbery, that is, a gift. Gift is free giving and free receiving. Jesus’s divinity is the matter of free giving and free receiving—which must be understood as the Trinitarian freedom given in the persons both in their ad intra and ad extra dimensions. As the text suggests, Jesus considered this gift as a gift in the proper sense, that is, a gift he freely received. He did not consider it a possession but a donation that is to be given again and given abundantly. This self-donation is what is realized in his self-emptying, and this unrestricted self-donation is what leads to his apocalyptic re-glorification. The structure of the text describes the process of how selfhood becomes personhood: it is the kenotic act of selfhood which results in personhood, and this kenotic act, ultimately, is the highest act of the self in its free self-identification. Selfhood as such never becomes selflessness in an ontological sense, but it is capable of giving itself freely as a gift so that this gift emerges as a new richness, that is, as the personhood of the self. If Jesus considered his divine form a possession, he would deny its freely donated character; if he considers it as a gift, he is able to further it to others as a gift. The freely accepted gift character of his divine form ensures that he, in his abundant self-emptying, hands this gift over as a gift, a donation, a freely given, freely accepted, and freely received present. Here we may have an insight into the content of the Patristic formula, according to which “God became man so that man may become God”—indeed a formula seemingly extravagant yet it contains the logical consequence of kenosis.70 Self-donation is thus the paramount free action of the self by which it renounces itself and becomes the self of a person. Selfhood is such that it expresses itself in personhood. It expresses itself freely and it renounces itself freely. However, instead of the annihilation of its selfhood, the self becomes the self of personhood, that is, the latter’s “object of introspection or reflexive action.” The free self-donation of selfhood constitutes in this way personhood in a radical way. Self-revelation, thus, points to radical revelation through the fact of radical personhood. Nevertheless, personhood cannot exist without its core self, that is, its genuine identity. Radical personhood has as its core its selfsame identity as the self. A person is a person inasmuch as he or she is related to this center of the self in a certain way. This way is properly basic in the sense that a person’s self is and remains the person’s self even if a given person loses self-consciousness or becomes disabled in other ways. Personhood is ultimately related to selfhood, and the loss of selfhood means the loss of personhood as well. Yet a given person has a relation to his or her selfhood in a way structurally similar to the kenotic process: a person does not consider his or her selfhood “a robbery,” but rather a gift. A gift, however, is not to 70 A number of the early Patristic authors apply this formula or a formula expressing this point, such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, or Athanasius. See, for example, Irenaeus, Writings, vol. II, p. 55: “Following the only true and steadfast teacher, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through his transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.” Or Athanasius: “He was God, and then became man, and that to make us gods.” In Select Treatises, vol. I, p. 236.

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be usurped, but is rather to be given away or given again. It belongs to the most important features of personhood that it considers its own core as the possibility of giving. On the natural level, this giving is giving birth to other persons. On a social level, giving is the love of the others. In a more concrete sense, giving is selfdonation. A person’s self-donation is the very act in which it not only reiterates the kenotic act of the self but renews it in various ways of the concrete lives of persons. Radical personhood, in accordance with what we saw above, is radical selfdonation. The kenotic act of personhood does not lead to a formless emptiness. As is shown in the structure of Philippians 2, the act of free self-emptying is the only way to genuine glory, that is to say, to the eschatological renewal of radical personhood in its selfsame identity. Radical personhood is reborn and renewed. The positive outcome of self-sacrifice is given in the reshaped relations between selfhood and personhood. In this new form, selfhood is such that it is expressed in personhood in a kenotic way, and personhood is such that it donates itself freely as a gift for the renewal of personhood in its selfsame identity.

9. Self-Revelation as Radical Personhood As a conclusion of the present chapter let me refer again to the model of self-revelation as I outlined it in Section 3. The model of self-revelation is a unified model of how we can speak about God’s revealing himself. It unifies direct and indirect self-revelation, that is to say, the fact that it is revelation that is revealed on the one hand, and it is God’s selfsameness that is revealed in revelation on the other hand. As the most important feature of the model of self-revelation I identified its flexibility, its openness to its nonstandard contents that can explode the model itself. Using this model is like walking on a minefield. God’s absolute freedom, and the opposing freedom as well, makes this endeavor precarious. Yet the understandings we have gained so far make the path more secure; and it is especially so with respect to the kenotic understanding of the self as expressed in radical personhood. The primordial content of self-revelation is the self itself. It is the self that is revealed and the self stands thus in the center of self-revelation. Yet the self is not a thing, it is not like a piece of stone, but rather the living and free unity of the divine in its factual absoluteness. This living, free unity is, as we saw, primordially self-donating; its selfhood is such that it expresses itself in personhood—one must haste to add: in absolute freedom and beyond any necessity. There is no natural necessity in God and even the logical one may be such that it appears “foolish”; for the teaching of kenosis is “folly to those who are perishing” (1 Cor. 1:18). The self constitutes personhood, and this central thesis appears true in the Trinitarian sense as well, because the Trinitarian persons are absolute expressions of the unity of God, his selfhood, while these expressions are never to be understood as temporal or modal or metaphysical. Just as in other cases, the fundamental principle holds here:  Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity in absolute self-relatedness.

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Having identified, as it were, the self in this way, the way is open to the generally accepted, but doctrinally merely metaphorical conviction according to which God is somebody. In the traditional formula, God is not somebody but three somebodies and one essence, substance, ousia. The Father, Christ, and the Spirit are somebody; God is not. However, if divine unity is understood as selfhood, God is indeed somebody, though not a person in the sense that the Trinitarian persons are persons. Yet God as self may be indeed addressed as a Thou, just as we address selfsame persons like this. Nonetheless, God’s Thou is pure selfhood and selfhood is such that it expresses itself—freely, wholly, without difference, aspects, or modes—in personhood. The model of self-revelation understands the self as kenotic and being given over into personhood. The same model understands personhood as kenotic and being given over to the selfhood of personhood. Personhood is kenotic as well: it is free and full self-donation to the unity of God in his selfsameness and also to the other persons in their personhood. This mutual and integral self-donation is what constitutes the divine in accordance with our model. Self-revelation is radical self-donation; and radical self-donation is exemplified in radical personhood. What is structured and therefore more easily apprehensible for the mind is the personhood of selfhood. Personhood turns out to be radical in that its root is kenotic selfhood and its activity is self-donation for the renewal of kenotic selfhood. It is, thus, indirect self-revelation as a model which makes it easier to approach such difficult problems. Yet in indirect self-revelation the underlying activity of direct self-revelation—revelation as the revelation of revelation—is unmistakable. Direct and indirect self-revelation is fundamentally about revelation as it takes place internally in the divine. This ad intra revelation is nevertheless not monolithic. It is not isolated from ad extra revelation, the revelation in creation and history. Immanent and economic, ad intra and ad extra revelations are organically connected and define each other in important ways.71 As can be seen in a number of famous paintings from the Renaissance and later ages, the Trinity is pictured as containing the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus represented in the form of a dead body just taken off the cross.72

71 For a detailed account, see François Bœspflug, “Trinity in the Visual Arts,” in Gilles Emery and Matthew Levering (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 472–6. Bœspflug claims that the images of the Trinity take the immanent Trinity as their main subject or motif. In many cases that is correct, yet there are highly interesting pictures which express aspects of the economy of the Trinity. My above interest concerns precisely those images in which the person of Christ is depicted in a way that suggests a combination of immanent and economic Trinity. 72 See, for instance, Albrecht Dürer’s Adoration of the Trinity (Allerheiligenbild or Landauer Altar) of 1511 (housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria).

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Let us study Rubens’s The Holy Trinity, for instance.73 The Holy Trinity is shown on this painting as involving the second person as represented by his dead body. It is not the resurrected Jesus that dominates the Trinity; it is not even the Holy Spirit with its radiance (as can be seen in a number of other paintings); it is the corpse of Christ, let me emphasize, that makes this understanding of the Trinity so unique. Theologically speaking, the artist integrated immanent and economic revelation in one synthetic representation of the Trinity. Philosophically speaking, the persons of the Trinity are represented as expressions of the one divine self in three forms, and one of these persons is shown in its historical reality. This reality is expressed by the dead body of Christ which is integrated into the glory of the Trinity. The glory of the Trinity is ensured precisely by this kind of representation involving the dead body of Jesus. This painting is also an expression of what I mean by radical personhood as expressing selfhood. The dead body of Jesus is divine; it is “God.” It is God precisely in and through the fact of its being human in the form of a corpse—a result of the kenotic act. Being a corpse is being divine, it is expressing the self of the divine in this particular way, in the form of a dead body of a person, who is nevertheless the glorious second person of the Trinity. Is there not a wonderful yet paradoxical feature on this representation of the Trinity? The corpse is divine, it is incorporated into the inner life of the Trinity; it is however the historical expression of revelation. Ad intra and ad extra revelations are unified here, which makes it easier for us to understand that self-revelation in the direct, indirect, and historical senses are interwoven and integrated. The synthetic moment, precisely, is the kenotic dimension of the divine, a dimension which makes it possible for us to understand the centrality of radical personhood in self-revelation. The kenotic reality of the Trinity cannot be, however, reduced merely to the second person. As Rubens’s painting also expresses, the other persons take part in the kenotic reality of the Son. The kenotic reality of the second person defines the Trinity; and it defines it, because it is the divine self that produces the kenotic act of the second person, and thereby the act of the one God is expressed in the kenotic reality of the second person. Of course one does not want to say that in the kenosis of the second person the entire godhead becomes kenotic in the same sense. Maintaining the distinctions among the persons, divine selfhood nevertheless takes part in the kenosis and thus the latter, while certainly the act of the second person, is defined by the divine self in its entirety. God is kenotic in a general sense, just as “God is love” and the self-sacrifice of God is love’s greatest act. The history of art is filled with representations of radical personhood. Beginning with Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece through Michelangelo’s Christ on the Cross to Caravaggio’s Deposition and El Greco’s Trinity we witness a unique cult of the tortured body of Christ in paintings and sculpture. In my approach, it

73 The painting is from c. 1620; it is in the possession of Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Netherlands.

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is indeed radical personhood that is depicted in all these pieces of art. As always, art precedes, coexists with, and fulfills the theoretical expressions of an underlying experience, the experience of radical personhood as it emerged from latent sources of the Christian message and became articulated in so many ways. Christianity thus shaped intrinsically the underlying experience and this experience shaped the understanding of Christianity. The experience is about personhood in its radical form of desolation and suffering, a form which is nevertheless understood as expressed by the second person of the Trinity. Not only did the understanding of the Trinity determine these expressions, but the expressions also shaped the understanding of the Trinity and contributed to an ever deeper grasp of modern personhood with respect to its fragility, weakness, and desolation. Radicality consists precisely in grasping the weakness of human personhood, and in grasping the unique magnificence expressed by this desolation. Nature can also become desolate; plants and animals prove to be fragile and suffering in their own ways. Yet human suffering as it is mirrored in the modern experience is indicative of a more important dimension, the dimension of human personhood and thereby of the spiritual significance of being. By the twentieth century, artistic representations of radical personhood in the form of suffering receded. One of the main reasons may have been the real-historical suffering caused by the World Wars, the Gulag, and Auschwitz. Documentaries, diaries, novels, and poems took over the role that artistic painting had played in portraying radical personhood. The thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the diaries of Anna Frank, the novels of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Imre Kertész, and the theology of Jürgen Moltmann and Johann Baptist Metz, the philosophies of Hans Jonas and Emmanuel Lévinas shifted the emphasis of expressing the experience of radical personhood. More often than not, the experience concerned not one central human person but rather a community. Thus the experience of radical personhood has become the experience of communities.74 The film Son of Saul, which received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2016, offers a dramatic description of human suffering by showing in all details the human face of an Auschwitz internee, Saul.75 In the background, we dimly recognize the terrifying scenes of a death camp. In the foreground, however, we follow closely the face of the main character, that is, all the changes of a kenotic personality. Saul tries to find his way in the midst of an ineffable human tragedy. He is part and parcel of this tragedy; and his face reflects the suffering of an inexpressible drama. While he attempts to give proper burial of a dead boy, he reveals his own search for a lost identity. At the end of the movie, nevertheless, hope reappears in the form of a peasant boy, and Saul starts to smile. Thereby the director of the film makes it evident that even in the midst of extreme

74 For a detailed account, see Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz. 75 Written and directed by László Nemes, Saul is played by the actor and poet Géza Röhrig. The unique cinematography is realized by Mátyás Erdély.

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human suffering there is a silver lining, that is, the hope for a fuller reality represented by the peasant boy in the film. In the language of cinematography, Saul is indeed the embodiment of kenotic personhood, an expression of this unique kenosis, which points to the community of kenotic personalities and their unity in the perspective of new life. In all the various artistic representations, the main point of the above argument remains valid: radical personhood is the kenotic expression of selfhood, and self-revelation points to the understanding of radical personhood. The history of culture witnessed the inseminating influence of this idea, and in the midst of various developments, the idea itself has emerged from time to time with ever greater clarity.

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Chapter 4 R ADICAL R EVE L AT ION

1. Preliminaries In what follows I  connect the notion of self-revelation to the notion of radical revelation. Radical revelation, as the title of this work also suggests, is essentially important in the present approach to revelation. I argue that radical revelation is revelation of the ultimate fact of freedom. Freedom is so fundamental in our reality that it is difficult to offer an appropriate definition of it. The received distinction between negative and positive freedom already presupposes the fundamental fact of freedom, thus they cannot serve as an appropriate definition of freedom. However, I  will describe freedom in such a way that its fundamental character may become obvious. For this reason, I  will talk about the forms of expression of freedom, that is, the gestures of freedom below. These gestures of freedom are highlighted again on the basis of biblical scenes which are considered as rich facts or paradigmatic facts, that is, facts that reveal the fundamental structures of freedom in their own way. It will also be important to realize the unrestricted freedom of revelation and understand that revelation can be, at the same time, the denial of revelation. The understanding of the ultimate freedom of revelation helps us conceive revelation in terms of the original apocalypsis, which brings us again to biblical themes that are considered as structures of original facts. The investigation of the Book of Revelation does not intend to offer a biblical exegesis but rather a philosophical interpretation of biblical themes in view of the fundamental subject matter of the present work. It is pointed out already in this chapter that we will need to investigate the reality and significance of apocalyptic personhood which stands in the center of the biblical descriptions of apocalypse. Radical revelation is the explanation of the synthetic model of self-revelation. Thus, radical revelation is again a model in the sense I explained the notion of a model above. This sense points to a flexible structure open to its own contents in such a way that these contents contribute to the deepening and the shaping of the model itself. Thus, this model, a living model as it were, is the means by which we may realize the overwhelming power of radical revelation.

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2. Self-Revelation and Radical Revelation The distinction between direct and indirect self-revelation needs to be recalled at this point again. Direct self-revelation is the revelation of revelation as revelation. It is important to see that a certain fact, a content, or an understanding may not figure directly as revelation. Nevertheless, if it is revelation, it contains its own information about its being revelation. Revelation is precisely such that it informs the receiver of revelation about its being revelation, and this information is not an extrinsic feature of it but an intrinsic constituent which appears as the determining element of all related information. Self-revelation in the direct sense is the pervasive presence of the information about the fact that what is given is revelation. It is self-revealed from the ultimate source of being, from the divine in its selfhood. In the same sense, direct self-revelation “is the Word of God in your heart,” as Augustine said: it is not only an external information but fundamental information which permeates the receiver of revelation. This receiver is first of all the divine itself in which revelation ad intra is always at work. But it is also revelation ad extra which creates and permeates nature and history, and last but not least it permeates human persons. Au contraire, in the indirect sense self-revelation is revelation of the self, the unity of the divine; and self-revelation in its indirect dimension turns out to be the revelation of selfhood in personhood, ultimately in the personhood of concrete human beings in their historical and cultural concreteness. Human personhood in the sense it evolved throughout the centuries is a palpable consequence of the Trinitarian understanding of self-revelation; as radical personhood, personhood reaches its blossom. Blossom, however, is not yet the fruit. There is more than just radical personhood, even if its fact offers some of the most moving fulfillments of reality. Just as self-revelation is a pointer to radical revelation, radical personhood is connected to an even fuller personhood. We need to understand apocalyptic personhood in order to understand the genuine importance of radical personhood.1 We need to understand radical revelation in order that we see the importance of selfrevelation. The structure here is far from being cryptic: direct revelation, as suggested above, permeates indirect revelation, and direct revelation is the core of radical revelation. It is not that direct and indirect revelations may be rigidly separated; they infuse and crystalize one another. Yet the distinction between them is not only a distinction ad extra, in our mind, it is also an ad intra distinction, a relation between self-revelation and radical revelation. Self-revelation is related to radical revelation as direct self-revelation to indirect self-revelation. Just as indirect self-revelation offers a more structured form of direct revelation, radical revelation explains the details of self-revelation. They are related to one another, which means that there is no aspect or dimension of self-revelation that is not defined by radical revelation; clearly, because it is radical revelation that makes revelation revelation. Self-revelation in its both forms is present in radical revelation; nevertheless, its presence is radical. Self-revelation is ultimately the uncovering of radical personhood, the realization of kenosis. Yet 1 Apocalyptic personhood is the central subject matter of Chapter 5 below.

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in radical revelation, self-revelation as radical personhood changes and integrates into it the dimension of apocalyptical personhood, the very core of radical revelation. Radical revelation is apocalyptic:  not only in the literary sense in which apocalypsis has the basic meaning of revelation, but in the higher sense of an eschatological fulfillment, which needs to be clarified in a number of ways below.2 Self-revelation is about the what of revelation. Radical revelation is about the how of revelation. The “how” here means the unique revelational quality of revelation, that is, its being precisely revelation and not any other piece of activity and information. In the ad intra dimension, self-revelation as revelational is what constitutes the inner communication of selfhood and personhood. The kenotic nature of selfhood is based on its revelational quality. This quality, nevertheless, is not a quality in the sense of a property of a physical or mental object. This quality is absolute, as it were, because it describes the divine, that is to say, its revelation. The divine is such that it is revealed to itself in the most basic sense possible here. God is not a piece of stone or a satellite circling the earth. God is pure activity, actus purus, and this pure or infinite activity is the activity of revelation. For God is revelation, absolute revelation, which means: God is at the same time the absolute revealer and the absolute receiver of revelation. He is not “necessary” revelation, because in God there is only freedom; no emanation-like revelation, as if radical revelation, its ultimate quality, may be suitably compared to the behavior of physical light. God is absolute freedom, his revelation is the activity of this freedom, and its factuality is the fact of freedom; radical revelation is the fact of freedom. Self-revelation as direct and indirect are unified in this ultimate fact so that they make this fact, the quality of revelation as revelation, partial and universal, ubiquitous and specific, concrete and abstract, latent and expressed simultaneously. Whenever the adjective “radical” is used in this work, it always refers to a “radix,” an origin, a source. “Radical revelation” does the same:  it refers to the absolute fact of freedom in direct self-revelation as the ultimate source of all revelation, ad intra or ad extra. As we have seen, the ad intra and ad extra dimensions of revelation permeate one another in an inscrutably complex and intricate fashion. This fashion is eternal and eternally valid in itself and for the human mind. The human mind is not foreign to this revelation, because anything conceivable is derivative of absolute freedom, the human mind included. There is no concrete wall or iron curtain between the mind and the source of revelation; there is, nevertheless, a decisive disproportionality which the human mind is aware of, and precisely by this awareness it has an understanding of the importance of both its own nonproportional nature and the disproportionate depth of radical revelation. As mentioned above, the model of self-revelation is such that it offers itself as an overarching model of revelation with all possible aspects we can add to it. It is a model of dynamism and freedom, openness and change, since it contains possible aspects we are not yet aware of. Radical revelation is conceived of as embodying and disclosing the absolute fact of freedom ad intra and ad extra. These two dimensions constitute together an intrinsically interwoven texture of reality, in the context of 2 See also Appendix II, “The Ramifications of Revelation,” which helps see the connections among the kinds of revelation.

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which various distinctions clearly emerge yet always with a categorical reference to the other kind of dimension. The flexibility of the model of self-revelation is even more needed when we develop the notion of radical revelation; since the emphasis in the latter is on absolute freedom. Even if absolute freedom can be modeled, as I attempt to show it, it always needs to be taken into account that freedom entails randomness; freedom is unpredictable. However, if it is not any freedom that is in focus here, but freedom taken absolutely, then freedom contains yet transcends at the same time any prediction. In this fashion, the freedom of absolute revelation can be described to some extent by the model we apply onto it, yet freedom is always infinitely more than what can be described in such a context.

3. Radical Revelation as the Fact of Freedom To use the more traditional language, we may say that God is absolutely free. Inasmuch as God is pure revelation ad intra and ad extra, the question arises as to what this absolute freedom, the radicality of revelation, consists in. Why does God remain God in his absolute freedom? Why does not he commit self-destruction? Why is he at all in the first place given the fact that absolute freedom is such that it is capable of abolishing itself? Why does he maintain freedom instead of becoming a slave of some self-invented necessity? The concrete form of these questions addresses the most fundamental meaning of freedom. Freedom may be a property in an average situation, such as the freeing of a captive bird. The freed bird flies away happily and possesses the property of being free, having freedom. This property is nevertheless rather temporary, since after a sufficiently long time one could not mention it as an important characteristic of the bird. The freedom of the bird is a temporal and extrinsic property valid in the context of being caged and being freed. If this context is not available any longer, the property itself disappears or at least withdraws into a potential dimension. On the other hand, we cannot deny that human beings have the property of freedom not merely on a temporal basis. We all know that one can be freed from a prison, relieved psychologically, economically, or socially. Yet human beings as persons intrinsically possess freedom as their fundamental feature, as a feature without which we cannot call ourselves “human persons.” By accepting this point we see right away that the personal freedom of a human being is not merely about external forms of some free choice or practical preference, and that deeper than these lies the immense potential of freedom as the central core of being a human person. And we see that this freedom is fairly difficult to describe. It is not enough to say that human persons are free from this or that enslaving factor. It is not sufficient to say either that they are free to do, act, or behave in certain ways where the only reason behind their actions is freedom itself. The first is merely “negative freedom,” the second is only “positive freedom,” yet freedom is not only negative or positive, not even the composition of the two, but rather their original and ultimate unity in a radical freeness. When we think, we apply freedom in any and every juncture of our thoughts. We freely follow our insights, seek for reasons and conclusions, apply, modify,

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amend rules, compare experience and logic, authority and tradition, culture and personal preference. This freeness is so intimately ours that it is unimaginable to think ourselves as human persons without it. Even disabled persons possess this intrinsic freedom on some level, and even people with serious psychological or physical impairments have their intrinsic freedom in limited areas and for certain periods of time. Freedom may be thought of as a property, yet it is an essential property the fundamental fact of which makes us, human persons, persons. Being a person is being free. Being free is the point in being in the first place. Freedom is deeper than something extrinsic or intrinsic, it is the freely given fact of becoming and being. Freedom is the ultimate answer to the question formulated by Leibniz for the first time:  Pourquoi il y a plutôt quelque chose que rien?—Why is there something rather than nothing?3 There is something rather than nothing, because freedom in its original and ultimate sense is freely given as the source of reality. God’s freedom has no restraint. It is not a property of his being but rather its core dimension. God does not have freedom, he is freedom. The fact of freedom is the fact of the self-revealing God both in the direct and the indirect senses; the fact of freedom is the fact of radical revelation. Freedom is the origin and source of reality and thus cannot be, while maintaining its fullness, self-destructive. If freedom destroys freedom, it maintains freedom, because even its self-destruction is the act of freedom which remains free as such an act. Thus freedom remains freedom in all possible ways. Freedom is eo ipso indestructible. To be more precise, since freedom in the full sense is absolute freedom, freedom is capable of self-limitation and even self-denial. Yet these and any other forms of self-negation describe merely how freedom is realized, that is, how freedom is always on the way to becoming ever freer, fuller, or more accomplished. The how of freedom’s developing into fullness and the way in which freedom fulfills its own concreteness entail kenotic moments, or even full kenosis in accordance with what I described above with respect to the role of radical personhood. Radical revelation as the fact of freedom entails such moments. It is not only a mere emanation of some inner source, but rather a kind of rhythm. It is not some undeviating selfdisclosing, but rather revealing as hiding and revealing at the same time (as I shall detail this point below). Radical revelation is not merely fullness but also waning, it is not only blossoming but also fruition, not only genesis but fulfillment as well, and not only end but return, rebirth, and reemergence. In answering the above question—Why is God at all in the first place given the fact that absolute freedom is such that it is capable of abolishing itself?—we can 3 Leibniz actually formulated two questions belonging closely together:  “nothing occurs for which it would be impossible for someone who has enough knowledge of things to give a reason adequate to determine why the thing is as it is and not otherwise. This principle having been stated, the first question which we have a right to ask will be, ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ For nothing is simpler and easier than something. Further, assuming that things must exist, it must be possible to give a reason why they should exist as they do and not otherwise.” Leibniz, “The Principles of Nature and of Grace,” in Philosophical Papers and Letters. A Selection, trans. and ed. with an introduction by Leroy E. Loemker (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1989), p. 639.

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follow the nature of freedom to show that freedom is essentially self-constructive. It cannot be excluded that this self-constructive nature entails self-negating elements which however enrich the former: “his own waste provides his own food.”4 To enrich something means a partial or full enrichment, and even if partial enrichments are valuable, a total renovation is more than valuable: it is genuine. Freedom is genuine and so is its enrichment as well, which freely entails self-negating features of freedom, such as the kenotic self-negating of the God of zimzum, or selflimitation or self-restraint to the extremes, such as waste or cross. Yet the very apprehension of self-negation presupposes the wider and constructive context of self-enrichment, which is indeed the ultimate horizon of freedom. Radical revelation, thus, is fundamentally and in the perfectly active sense (in the sense of actus purus) self-constructive. It is pure love. Nevertheless, the radicality of revelation often appears in ways which negate the application of the word “love” in a standard sense. For radical revelation is intimately close to our mindset, yet it is at the same time the farthest away. It is true that “God is revelation” and “God is love” are propositions offering contents fairly close to one another. Yet revelation is not simply love but the history of love as well, and it is not merely pure forgiveness but judgment as well, and it is not only birth but death too, in a way which shows us a more complete fulfillment, an eschatological realization of radical revelation.

4. The Eight Gestures of Freedom Radical revelation as the fact of freedom is indeed the ur-fact of reality, and in this way it is above all Trinitarian arch-revelation ad intra. Keeping in mind the disproportion between our thinking and the depth of radical revelation, we still need to endeavor to outline the inner life of the fact of freedom in its Trinitarian relatedness in as many ways as possible. The methodology applied here continues my above approach: analogy enriched with the insight of incomprehensibility—yet relying on the understanding of this insight itself—appears to be the only way possible for us to follow. This only possible way, nevertheless, cannot lead us to the desired goal, to a nonproportional understanding of radical revelation (including the understanding of the lack of proportionality as well), if it is not exposed to the free effect of radical revelation, its free emergence as the proper content of our analogy. I repeat that this methodology is not only analogical and apophatic at the same time, but also factual. It goes without saying that we cannot describe a fact genuinely without allowing as much factuality into our account as is possible in a given context. Since the fact of radical revelation is not a finite and isolated fact, it is not even or merely a “rich fact,” but rather the absolute fact of freedom, therefore this factuality is expected to permeate, even if nonproportionally, our model of radical revelation. The fact of freedom is a personal fact, and above all it is the fact of revelation. It has a peculiar personal structure, unity in plurality and plurality in unity, in which the unity is expressed by the selfhood of self-revelation, while the plurality is 4 Plato, Timaeus 33c. See Chapter 3, footnote 68 above.

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disclosed in the plurality of personhood. This intricate structure may be described to some extent even in ad libitum ways, such as offering analyses of nature and culture, human history or behavior, paradigmatic achievements in the arts and sciences. Or again, it can be approached in scrutinizing our traditions, most importantly the central dimensions of it which is considered sacred and bearing a unique significance. In Chapter 2, I offered the liturgy as the unified expression of various models of revelation in a unique, and uniquely significant, cultural setting. This choice was not arbitrary, because the liturgy is indeed a form of revelation and its original architects, among others and especially St. John Chrysostom, designed its structure and parts precisely so that it expresses the central motions of revelation. I use the expression “gesture” here in a sense built upon its common meaning. Originally, a gesture is a communicative motion of the body. There is no precise definition as to which parts of the body may be involved. To make a gesture we may just move our trunk, neck, or hands, or only our head in a certain way. And there is no precise definition as to what meanings are bound up with what motions of our body. Gestures are always concrete and have their roots in a given communicative situation There are gesture-like motions which have definite meanings, such as lifting our right hand as a sign of greeting. Yet signs differ from gestures precisely in that signs have a clear order of form and content, and signs are rigorously connected to certain meanings. As opposed to this, gestures are not definite either in form or content. Their meaning is given in a concrete situation, and this meaning is never a simple proposition: gestures are closer to symbols than to signs. Such meanings, moreover, may be expressed by different gestures. Greeting can be conveyed by a movement of our face, head, arms, or body—for instance, when we stand up or slightly bow a welcome to a person. However, gestures do not merely express an intention but reveal a deeper personal trait. Gestures are revealing of their agent. They are disclosures of the freedom of a personality in a given situation: indeed, gestures are gestures of freedom. It is on the basis of the meaning of a gesture that I talk here of the gestures of freedom. It is the fact of freedom that emerges in a gesture, and the fact of freedom is the core of radical revelation. The gestures of freedom have as their agent freedom in the absolute sense as it is appropriately used here. When I search for the gestures of freedom, I am free to use a great variety of cultural material relevant here, and just as we found the expression of revelation in the liturgy, we may similarly read off the gestures of freedom from the main feasts of the traditional liturgical year. The Christian year begins with Advent, it continues through Christmas, Epiphany, and Ash Wednesday, and it reaches its culmination in the double feast of Easter (Good Friday and Easter Sunday). Finally, it is further fulfilled in Pentecost. These seven feasts manifest seven aspects of the same reality, the reality of divine salvation, unified in a septiform structure. This form hides in itself two triadic patterns and one corollary: The Advent-Christmas-Epiphany continuum on the one hand, and the Ash Wednesday-Good Friday-Easter Sunday continuum on the other. The former may be considered as the realization of immanent, ad intra revelation with clear Trinitarian implications. Fatherhood is disclosed in the feast of origin (Advent); sonship is manifested in the feast of birth (Christmas); and

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spirituality can be seen in the feast of Epiphany, the visible appearance of Jesus “in the Temple.” The second continuum is Trinitarian again in its structure and refers to the fundamental forms of ad extra revelation: Ash Wednesday is fatherhood in its inner purity; Good Friday is sonship in the form of disclosing the basic kenotic act of radical personhood; and Easter Sunday is the fullness of revelation of divine glory in the overwhelming event of resurrection. The two patterns are integrated by the consummation event of Pentecost, which expresses an ultimate moment of total unification: Jesus is received into the heaven and thereby his story, the intricate story of redemption, is ultimately fulfilled. The ad intra and ad extra dimensions of revelation are synthesized in one final moment of an infinite whole. We see similar patterns reiterated in other sets of liturgical feasts during the year, but what interests me here is the undeniable fact of revelational and, at the same time, Trinitarian structures which permeate these patterns. Just as the liturgy itself, the liturgical year has also been designed to inform us about the inner meaning of historical or quasi-historical events, a meaning essentially Trinitarian and revelational. It has never been the poor fact of simple history which occupied the imagination of the designers of the liturgical year. Rather, they wanted to send a clear message about the ultimate significance to which the seemingly poor facts of real history refer. The underlying idea is not a confounding of the natural and the supernatural, but rather the insight that the natural manifests the supernatural and the supernatural has its paternal relationship with the natural. Human history does not only manifest divine history, but the latter is intrinsically open to being reflected in, and received into, the former. The focal point of this understanding is the expression of the godhead in one human face, in the face of Jesus depicted especially by the Pantocrator type of icons. It is this icon that typically has the inscription (or some Greek letters referring to the inscription): “The Being” (ὁ ὤν), meaning: “I am Being,” “I am who I am” (Exod. 3:14). In what follows, nevertheless, I apply a slightly different approach: instead of the liturgical year I use some paradigmatic stories from the gospels to offer eight gestures as expressions of the fact of freedom of radical revelation—gestures called to signify the deeply person-like nature of this fact. The number eight does not have any metaphorical or metaphysical message here, but is merely based on the important events in the gospels which offer summaries of the gestures of absolute freedom in the context of the real life of a person. The meanings of these gestures are explained with respect to this real life. The gestures, thus, are model-like expressions of the reality of radical revelation. a. Birth If freedom is born, it does not mean that there was a time when freedom did not exist. Even birth is connected to freedom in various ways, most importantly by the actions leading to birth as human, that is, intrinsically free actions. Birth existed, or simply was, hidden in an unknown depth in a way which characterizes freedom in its more developed forms as well. For freedom is not simply an appearance, a concrete choice, or a way to follow, but rather an overarching and deep-seated

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potency which is able to take more active and complex forms. “Birth” is precisely the right description of the occurrence by which the underlying freedom, freedom in its slumbers, takes a more definite and more structured shape. Birth is thus a beginning, but not an absolute beginning. Just as the newborn has a complex prehistory, also the birth of freedom originates in a previous layer of freedom, in its general and specific potency. Yet the great moment of freedom is nevertheless the moment of birth. When we witness a sunrise in nature, the experience can be compared to the experience of freedom being born: the darkness of the night is overcome, light covers the horizon, and the sun is emerging as realizing a never before seen victory over the empire of the shadows. Unlike the sunrise, however, the birth of freedom is a free birth: it belongs to the essence of freedom that it may remain unborn. To be born in our perspective entails being born freely, and being born freely entails the free decision to be born. Accordingly, freedom freely decides its own birth, its own incarnation, and this decision is never entirely free of complications. Not only freedom must be born, but its decision must be formed, it must be made; as a free decision, it does not have a cause, while it has a reason. The reason of the birth of freedom is the free disclosure of radical revelation in such a way that its intrinsic freedom may be expressed in direct and indirect self-revelations; that in indirect self-revelation, the self as radical personhood may emerge and in direct self-revelation the entirely apocalyptic personhood may take shape. Thus the ultimate reason in the self-birth of freedom is personhood: radical or apocalyptic, personhood appears to be a goal in the birth of freedom, a goal which can relocate and rearrange again the shared structures of personhood and selfhood of revelation. As a gesture, the birth of freedom is concrete; it always belongs to a concrete historical setting, culture, and language; it always has a concrete story, a narrative, a development. There is no birth, not even the absolute birth of freedom, which goes without the configuration of some concrete settings. The absoluteness of the birth of freedom does not eliminate concreteness. Yet its absolute power shines through the concrete settings and reveals a universality which remains unrecognized in average cases. In this perspective, concrete circumstances gain an elevated significance and everyday circumstances disclose their hidden dimension of richness. This perspective is normally experienced by parents having a child. They recognize a universal significance in an everyday occurrence, a significance deeply present in the natural event itself. In the birth of freedom, a fundamental gesture of freedom is realized, the initial gesture laden with fragility and defenselessness. Yet above all weakness and contingency, the light of a higher power shines through and shows the way for the emergence of radical revelation. The Italian renaissance painter Girolamo da Santacroce (c. 1480/85–c. 1556) produced his painting The Adoration of the Magi in his mature period in Venice.5 Given the fact that the painter was one of the finest artists of his age, it will suffice here to focus only on some of the meaningful structures he created in

5 In the possession of the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore, MD).

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this work of art. These structures do not merely describe an average setting; on the contrary, the painting is about how an average situation, with a newborn child in its center, can be interpreted in a cosmic context. “Cosmic” is indeed a good word here, because of the significance of the Star of Bethlehem which, according to Matthew, led the “wise men of the East” to the place of birth. The story of the Star of Bethlehem is reminiscent of the ancient traditions of cosmo-theology. Its most probable explanation is the occurrence of a unique constellation expressing, in accordance with ancient astronomy, the birth of a new age on the land belonging to the sign of the constellation. The “wise men” (μάγοι) were indeed astronomers. Their adoration for the child meant to express not only the power of inspired astronomy but also the cosmic dimensions of this birth.6 On the painting of Santacroce, the Star of Bethlehem is substituted by three angels. This change, Trinitarian in character, stands in harmony with further Trinitarian features. On the one hand, the three Magi embody a strong Trinitarian content; they are distinguished first of all by their age (father, son, grandson), but also by their special spatial positions: the youngest one is standing upright in the background, the middle-aged priest is just bending his knees, while the old one is already kneeling in front of the infant. Three magi, three ages, three aspects of one intention, three bodily gestures, and three kinds of gift: “gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” On the other hand, by facing the three magi, we see that the Holy Family exemplifies another Trinitarian structure in which the Spirit is embodied by the Virgin by virtue of their intimate relationship. Here the oldest person stands in the background (father) and the youngest (son) faces the old priest kneeling in front of him. Between the two we see the mother in her youthful beauty. The two Trinitarian groups are arranged around the central position of the infant in whom personhood is disclosed. The two groups express the ad intra and ad extra life of the Trinity. The ad intra or immanent life is shown in the life of the Family, and the ad extra or economic Trinity is represented by the magi and their cosmichistorical complexity. The two groups are unified by the three angels above them, thus making the Trinitarian structure of the painting even more obvious. The gesture of birth appears in a Trinitarian perspective on this painting. Its concreteness manifests the fact of freedom, which is such that it materializes in a specific historical and cultural situation. The fact of freedom is absolutely free of any limitation, therefore it freely entails situations, and it is always in and through such a situation that the genuine fact of freedom is disclosed. The infant Jesus, as the painter depicts him, reaches out to touch the gift of the old priest and symbolizes thereby his divine right to the noblest and highest. In his playful gesture, the infant is taking over the role, traditionally symbolized by the gold as a precious metal, of universal kingship. Freedom, playfulness, concrete settings, and richness in cultural details are all invoked here to show the supernatural in the mirror of the natural, to disclose the eternal in the temporal, and to point out the intimate relationship between the two in a higher and even more comprehensive Trinitarian

6 Cf. Ferrari d’Occhieppo, Der Stern von Bethlehem.

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structure of the angels. The fact of freedom appears here in a gesture of synthesis; freedom is born and specifically situated not only in the historical, but also in the entirety of all immanent and economic Trinitarian relationships. When we think of birth in any concrete instance, we should never forget that birth is above all the exemplification of the gesture of freedom. The story of the gospels expresses this fact with respect to the birth of the second person of the Trinity. Yet this story is the one that taught us to understand birth in its essential meaning. It is not that every human birth is seen, according to the gospels, in the perspective of the One Birth of freedom, but it is rather that in this perspective we can realize the paradigmatic significance of birth, the significance referring to the birth of freedom in the heart of the reality of the Trinity. This birth in the Trinity is nonproportionally conceived of in any empirical birth we witness or experience, an understanding safeguarding the mystery of the Trinity and, at the same time, demonstrating the power of its overwhelming reality. b. Growth In its common forms, freedom has a certain variability. In some cases, freedom is more limited, in some other cases it is more expanded. On a general level, freedom is not only chronologically structured (it is to be born in the first place), but also to be nurtured and strengthened so that it can resist the opposing force of non-freedom. Freedom is born out of itself, yet in the concrete situation in which it comes to the fore it always faces the shadow of suppression. Thus the fact of freedom needs to have not only the concreteness for its being genuine freedom, but also an inner power to overcome its own limitations and develop itself into its fuller forms. The fact of freedom as the core of radical revelation is not a dead fact but a living one, and it is living also in the sense that it needs to accumulate its inner energy to resist extinction and strengthen its rise. The gesture of freedom as growth expresses the idea that freedom has an ultimate inner resource of power which makes it possible to reaffirm its own factuality and oppose contrary developments. Freedom is growing, developing, evolving. It uses its own resources to become manifest in as many ways as possible. And thus freedom often endeavors unexpected steps and reaffirms itself in unusual situations. This gesture of freedom can be illustrated by using works of art showing the twelve-year-old Jesus as a partner of rabbis and priests in the Jerusalem temple. Jesus is often seen in this context as the genius whose talent had to become manifest at an early age. The talent of freedom goes its own way, so the gospel story of the parents searching the lost boy recalls similar situations in the life of parents of other ages and cultures. The story is traditionally considered as an early sign of Jesus self-awareness of his messianic ministry. It can, nevertheless, be better considered as the expression of the growing power of “wisdom and stature” (Lk. 2:52), that is to say, as the force of freedom seeking to express itself with an unpredictable spontaneity. The gesture of growth is the appropriate expression of an ever more selfaffirming freedom. Jesus leaves his father and mother and returns alone to the

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Temple following his own intention. In the midst of the wise, he expounds his growing knowledge of tradition and eternity, his understanding of the past, present, and future. What could his interpretations contain in such a situation? Every interpretation is self-interpretation, and Jesus’s inquiries in the Temple must have been a form of self-interpretation as well. His age and situation was of the path of growing freedom; and he must have understood that his path was different not only from his parents but also from the majority of the people around him. He was sitting “in the midst of the doctors,” but he did not only listen to them: rather, he appeared as “listening to them and asking them questions” (Lk. 2:46). That is to say, Jesus realized a self-interpretation by asking questions and thereby situating his own understanding in the context of the understanding of his contemporaries. It is questioning which is centrally characteristic of the growth of freedom. Freedom stands in a communicative situation:  it is not only related to its possibilities, but it investigates consciously its own scope of power. Some paintings especially from the early Renaissance period (such as Giotto’s in Sienna) show Jesus in a red robe, thereby showing his inner energy and growing self-assurance. However, the boy Jesus is often depicted in a group of two other doctors, emphasizing thereby a Trinitarian interpretation. For indeed, listening and questioning is not merely an extrinsic activity in the Gospel, but an expression of the inner communication of the life of the Trinity, a communication composed, in this dimension, of questions and answers. This communication is always self-interpretive, that is to say, Trinitarian: not only in the sense of the ad intra and the ad extra life of the Trinity, but more importantly in the sense of the organic unity of the two. Ad intra and ad extra dimensions are interwoven without superseding, confounding, or invalidating one another. It is an eternal Ineinandersein with an infinitely rich structure of intimacy and objectivity, relation and distinction, unity and plurality. The childhood story depicted in the gospels makes it clear that questioning belongs to the heart of revelation. Surprisingly, there are more than one hundred questions in the gospels which Jesus asks. This dimension of the gospel texts should be investigated in detail; here nevertheless I can only offer a general summary of the most important questions and their significance in the context of the gesture of the growth of revelational freedom. We find, for instance, the following questions: Why do you call me good? (Mk 10:18) Why are you so afraid? (Mt. 8:26) Do you believe that I am able to do this? (Mt. 9:28) Who is my mother, and who are my brethren? (Mt. 12:48) Why did you doubt? (Mt. 14:31) Where is your faith? (Lk. 8:25) Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, “I am God’s Son”? (Jn 10:36) Why do you ask me? (Jn 18:21) These questions differ from one another not only in content but also in the form of the question which may be merely rhetorical. Yet by the variety of such forms

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and contents, they express that divine revelation may have the form of a question and this question may not have to be pre-decided. They may be genuine questions which need genuine answers, just as revelation as a question may trigger a genuine answer from the addressee. The real form of a question is nevertheless always such that it calls for a real answer. And the questions of the second person of the Trinity are above all real questions in the Trinitarian sense and the answers that need to be given to them are real answers in the same sense. Making a question is not only a characteristic form of knowledge-acquiring in childhood (especially in the phase of the “why questions”) but the central philosophical means as well by which the nature of reality may be disclosed. Such a question is, as quoted above, the question of Leibniz: Pourquoi il y a plutôt quelque chose que rien? Here it is not merely that the content appears to be decisive but rather the fundamental nature of the question which is far from being rhetorical. The “pourquoi” does not simply ask about the ground, the cause or the reason, but rather about the meaningful context of any being. It points out, in other words, that it is not being that is the ultimate moment of reality but rather the meaning of being in the context of which being is situated. Once we ask for the meaning of being we become aware of the fact that being has a source which is beyond being. And this source is the revelation of being or divine revelation as such, a revelation present in the simplest questions of ours as they are depicted in the gospels. A further and perhaps even more important dimension of the problem of revelation as a question is about its distinction from all the other kinds of revelation. In the overview of the various forms of revelation above,7 we find merely affirmative forms. Van der Leeuw, Heiler, but even Latourelle or Dulles offer only such forms which do not have, or even rigorously exclude, the question mark. Perhaps it is only Heiler’s kind of revelation as “philosophy” which may imply the possibility of a question; Dulles’s “dialectical presence,” “inner experience,” or “new awareness” do not refer to such a possibility. Yet it is abundantly clear that questioning may be a form of revelation, and as such it is about revelation as an encounter between an I and a Thou, for a question can be raised meaningfully only in such a context. There is always somebody who asks a question from somebody else, one person from another person, a human from a human or a divine from a divine, or again a divine person from a human person and a human person from a divine person. What is expressed in the question form of revelation is the openness of revelation to an answer. Revelation entails the receiver of revelation and revelation as a question entails revelation as an answer. It is not primordially important if the questioning and the answering ones are divine or human. For even in the ad intra perspective, revelation as a question is meaningful in an original sense and in a Trinitarian form, that is, in a form appropriately taken as belonging to the ad intra dimension of the Trinity. In accordance with the principle of communicatio idiomatum, the questions of the child Jesus are questions of the second person of

7 Cf. Chapter 2, sections 3–4.

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the Trinity, and if there are Trinitarian answers to such questions, questions are present in the ad intra Trinitarian structures. Similarly, divine questions may result in human answers, and human questions may lead to divine answers. In the ad extra dimension of the divine, questions can be formulated and questions can be received. In both cases, we are dealing with the significant aspect of revelation which contributes to the growth of freedom. We may understand ourselves in this context as the ones that are addressed or the ones that are addressing. In both cases again, revelation reveals its openness to an answer which is genuine and not pregiven, because it is freedom which makes it possible that we pose and answer questions and it is freedom again which is the heart of revelation, especially the heart of the question form of revelation. Radical revelation is an infinite process of free self-enrichment. It takes its inner power to express revelation as revelation not only in the historical past but in the present and the future as well. It articulates itself in ad intra and ad extra ways so that the two, while nonproportionally distinct, refer to each other at all their junctures. In this intricate process of self-reference there is still one definite development of the growth of radical freedom. In revelation as a question this freedom is uniquely expressed. c. Entry One of the most conspicuous figures of the New Testament is John the Baptist. His closeness to Jesus is variously described, in most manifest terms by the Gospel of John. Here John the Baptist appears as a prophet in many ways similar to the figure of Jesus. When asked about his identity, John answers with the mysterious words: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (Jn 1:23). “Ἐγὼ φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ” may be seen as the reflection of some divine consciousness, because the original expression behind “the crying voice” may have been very similar to the notion of the λόγος in Jn 1:1, that is, an expression referring to John the Baptist as a word of God. Again, this word sounds “in the wilderness,” that is to say, in the world “without form and void” (Gen. 1:2, ‫)תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ‬. If this parallelism has some plausibility, then it refers to John’s creative self-consciousness as that of the one sent by God to renew creation. It entails the very important point as well that John identified himself as a φωνή, voice, i.e., God’s creative word. John’s other expressions reveal not only similar contents but also an enigmatic style close to that of Jesus as is presented in the gospels: “Among you stands one whom you do not know, even he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie” (Jn 1:26–27). Beyond the lines of a narrow interpretation, these expressions are cryptic and highlight the awareness of an exceptional importance of their pronouncer. While we do not know him who “stands among us,” he knows him, because the word of God knows and renews everything.8 8 It is noteworthy, though not decisive, that the so-called Gospel of Barnabas consistently puts the enigmatic words of John into the mouth of Jesus. However we judge the value or disvalue of this apocryphal text (the original of which has not been recovered, it is extant in translations only), the attributing of John’s words to Jesus uniformly is remarkable; on

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At the same time, the gospels are clear about the secondary role of John. He points to the arriving Jesus: He is “the Lamb of God” . . . who must increase, while John must decrease (Jn 3:30).9 Whatever is verifiable in this parallelism, it remains true that even a prima facie reading of John had an exceptionally important role to fulfill: his introduction, even initiation of the Real One; the act of purification, that is, baptism. He is “a burning and shining lamp” which is still powerless as compared to the real light (Jn 5:35). It is in this unique relationship between John and Jesus that the parallelisms between their personalities receive an even stronger emphasis. They have been often depicted as children playing together at the feet of their mothers, Mary and Elisabeth, a favorite subject of Renaissance and early Baroque painting. The two prophets are, as it were, two faces of the same reality, two aspects of the same truth, two dimensions of one selfsame essence, one moonlike, the other sun-like. In the present context, it is the mutual character of the act of initiation that is under scrutiny: John-Jesus initiates Jesus-John into the mystery of the prophetic mission by offering him the act of purification. Jesus-John humbly accepts this service and undergoes the baptism, that is to say, the submerging into the water of chaos “without form and void.” He emerges from this chaos as a new being, a creation renewed. In this newness, the old dualism is unified; John-Jesus and Jesus-John are amalgamated into the one Christ; and through this unity, the contours of the Trinity are clearly outlined. In fact, the sounding voice from the heaven (“This is my beloved Son, with whom I  am well pleased,” Mt. 3:17 etc.) together with the Spirit’s “descending like a dove, and alighting on him” (Mt. 3:16 etc.) open a new Trinitarian perspective: Jesus enters this context, or rather he is shown to belong there as its crucial moment. Jesus passes into the Trinity; the Trinity receives Jesus. They both turn out to be intrinsically linked together both in the ad intra and the ad extra dimensions. In this particular occasion of purification, the Trinity reveals itself as the ultimate horizon of things in heaven and earth. The baptism is in fact the revelation of the Trinity in its inner and outer dimensions, but especially in its relationship to the duality represented by John-Jesus and Jesus-John and transcended by the one Christ. Radical revelation contains the gesture of entry: on the one hand, it receives into itself the achievements of freedom in a purified form, that is, in a form cleansed from the effects of chaotic and rebellious createdness. Every freedom participates in the one and ultimate freedom; all kinds of freedom are rooted in the fact of freedom of radical revelation. Yet human freedom must be purified and elevated so that it can be integrated into the absolute freedom of God. The gesture of entry makes this possible and offers its enriching power. On the other hand, the entry is made possible in a different, top-bottom manner as well: freedom descends, as it were, on the purified one. It blesses the latter’s readiness to shape himself and his

this basis, the similarity between the utterances of John and Jesus in the canonical gospels may point to a common tradition. 9 For the complex meaning of the “Lamb of God,” see also Chapter 5, section 3, g.

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world in accordance with his superior, and superiorly free, intentions. Entry in the first sense is perfecting a mission. In the second sense it is blessing and supporting a mission. In both cases it is the ultimate fact of freedom that is operative, because freedom is ultimately one (while its exemplifications are many). The free fact of radical revelation is self-freedom, yet in this self-freedom the original unity is dissolved, purified, structured, and reorganized. Radical revelation is about delegating and assuming the mission of freedom. It contains this accepting and delegating in an ultimate revelational form, and it contains them in its Trinitarian perspective: in a perspective shining through every juncture of our life and tradition. d. Healing The fact of freedom may be narrowed, limited, or restricted, it may be dislocated and weakened, and it may become dispersed and ineffective. In its activity, radical revelation does not merely disclose the fact of freedom, but it also shows how this fact can be reclaimed, restored, renewed, and enriched. Freedom is never just the display of an active potency, but also the activation of this potency, and if the potency to act freely is blocked, it belongs to the very nature of revelation to save freedom from its external or inner hindrances. Freedom is saving freedom. It liberates those that are in the shadow of nonfreedom. Already the gesture of entry shows the cleansing and initiating effects of freedom. Yet an even more focused liberating activity can be recognized in the gesture of healing. The process of convalescence is one of the important experiences of a human being. Even after small illnesses, healing is often seen as the rebirth of a person. This rebirth has physical, emotional, and intellectual sides. Physically, health is always relative and can be characterized rather as a functionally appropriate balance of various biological processes of our bodies. Emotionally, regaining health is often a moving experience, especially after serious illnesses. Intellectually, moreover, healing is the conscious recovery of truth important enough to influence one’s life. There is no clear relationship between these three dimensions: one can arrive at intellectual truth in a frail physical state, or one can recuperate without the emotional or intellectual experience of finding the truth. Yet, finding the truth, more often than not, is accompanied by appropriate emotions, and the emotions themselves may be signs of a physical or intellectual recovery. The number of the more than thirty-five miracles, which Jesus carried out according to the New Testament, does not seem to be surprisingly high. Jesus was not a miracle monger and he did not wish to show off his exceptional capability of healing the sick or feeding the hungry. Only in special circumstances did he allow himself to do a miracle, and while such a miracle occurred most often for the sake of the sick, sometimes the intention of Jesus was manifestly pedagogical: he wanted to let others know the exceptional power of God. Among his miracles, healing or curing occupies the central place: Jesus cured the official’s son (Jn 4:46–47); cast out an unclean spirit (Mk 1:23–28); cured Peter’s mother-in-law

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(Mk 1:30–31); healed a leper (Mk 1:40–45) and the centurion’s servant (Mt. 8:5– 13). Jesus cured demoniacs (Mt. 8:28–34; 12:22), a paralytic (Mt. 9:1–8), a woman with a flow of blood (Lk. 8:43–48). He opened the eyes of two blind men (Mt. 9:27–31), loosened the tongue of a man (Mt. 9:32–33), healed an invalid man at the pool (Jn 5:1–9). He restored a withered hand (Mt. 12:10–13), healed a woman of Canaan (Mt. 15:22–28), cured a deaf and mute man (Mk 7:31–37). He opened the eyes of a blind man (Mk 8:22–26; Mt. 20:30–34), cured an epileptic person (Mt. 17:14–21), opened the eyes of a man born blind (Jn 9:1–38), cured a woman afflicted for eighteen years (Lk. 13:10–17). He cured a man of dropsy (Lk. 14:1–4), cleansed ten lepers (Lk. 17:11–19), and restored the ear of the high priest’s servant (Lk. 22:50–51).10 Perhaps one of the most surprising curing miracles of Jesus is the one in Jn 9:6–7. According to the text, Jesus spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, saying to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

The various explanations with reference to popular curing practices in the age of Jesus cannot really help us understand the importance of this description. If we study the context, we may gain a better understanding. The disciples asked Jesus about the cause of the blindness of a certain person. Jesus’s answer evades naming the cause of origin, but points out the objective cause or teleology of the blindness: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him” (Jn 9:3). There is a goal in the blindness, and that is God’s disclosure, manifestation, or revelation (ἵνα φανερωθῇ. . .). The very meaning of blindness thus points to the accomplishment of God’s revelation in his works. Indeed, the meaning of radical revelation is nothing else than making this revelation complete, leading to its fulfillment. Healing is part and parcel of the process of revelation; and thus illness itself is part and parcel of the same process. Illness is such that it makes possible a healing; the rebirth of vision. Radical revelation, accordingly, is the restoration of the health of freedom from its weakness and the strengthening of this freedom in such unusual ways as described in the above passage. This passage, nevertheless, has a more particularly biblical context. Spitting onto the ground and making clay of the spittle embody a reiteration of the act of creating human beings out of clay (Adam means “ground” as substance) as is described in Gen. 2:7. Here we read: Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

10 I do not include in my text Jesus’s life-giving miracles (involving some sort of resurrection).

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In the miracle of healing Jesus creates, as it were, a new man; instead of breathing he spits on the ground, but the meaning is the same: the ground serves as the moldable material and breathing into it or spitting on it are seen as the act of a lifegiving power. In the first case, man becomes “a living soul”; in the second case, the blind is cured. The act is latently Trinitarian in both cases: God, his breath or spit, and the resulting life or ensuing recovery. Accordingly, the freedom of radical revelation has an immense renovating power ad intra as well as ad extra. Ad intra this renewing force is what maintains the eternal inner life of the Trinity in its relations and personality. Ad extra this force is creative: it creates the world and saves it from self-destruction. In a relational sense, the healing power of radical revelation is ubiquitous in every aspect of life and world. It leads us, among other things, to rethink our tradition in the light of our understanding of revelation in the framework of a radical philosophical theory. This radical theory does not have any renovating power of its own, but by virtue of the power of radical revelation our nonstandard radical philosophical theology may still prove to be renovating our understanding of radical revelation. e. Radiance Healing is just the beginning of health. Health in the physical, psychic, and spiritual senses is a higher level reality which shines through the healthy person’s entire life. Freedom, taken in its utmost form, is comparable to health: it belongs to the normal functioning of a person in several ways, but most importantly in a fundamental sense which characterizes a human being. The fact of freedom is not only decisive in a latent fashion; it appears visibly in public behavior and it is revealed in everyday situations of decision-making, planning, or organizing one’s life. The presence of freedom is detectable in all these realms, and even the misuse of freedom is a form of using it, although certainly limiting it at the same time. The gesture of freedom identified as radiance is this overall, physical as well as intellectual visibility of freedom permeating one’s life. This gesture is so fundamental in revelation that it is rightly compared to the shining of light: “The light shines in the darkness” (Jn 1:5). Revelation cannot be conceived without its inner core of freedom permeating it in every aspect and dimension, ad intra and ad extra, interpersonal and economic relationships. We need to emphasize this fact: revelation is the act of freedom and the content of revelation is nothing other than just pure freedom. The self and the persons are united in freely choosing one another; the world freely choses the secondary instead of the primary, and the divine freely chooses the salvation of the world by sacrificing itself for it. This radiating freedom is what may be described as the gesture of radiance in its plurality and unity: in the plurality of so many exemplifications in all walks of natural and supernatural life, and in the unity of the one and fundamental fact of freedom expressed by radical revelation. The story of Jesus in the gospels can be read as the summary of various kinds of freedom. Freedom is present in Jesus’s peculiar life events. It is present in his miracles, and it is present in his teachings as well. The parables are especially apt to

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express the shining quality of freedom in Jesus’s teaching, because they are indeed peculiar of their author and stand without appropriate parallels in the contemporary world of the funding events of Christianity. Out of the many parables let me focus on the one about “the discernment of the face of the sky”: He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather; for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” (Mt. 16:2–3)11

The context of this short parable is about the “signs” of the times, which this “evil and adulterous generation” seeks in vain, because “no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” While the exact character of this parable is discussable, since it does not describe a story, still it has the main marks of Jesus’s parable teaching: the description of a natural occurrence and its paradigmatic relationship to the message Jesus wants to convey. The description of nature is presented in the simple form of everyday weather forecast. Even in our own time, the inspection of the sky often serves the aim of determining the kind of weather we may expect; in those days, this practice was sophisticated and of course it included elements of traditional folklore. Yet the content of the message is clear: examining the sky with the will to determine what one may expect parallels the studying of the “signs of the times” in order to determine the overall eschatological situation. Jesus claims that there is an undeniable analogy between nature and eschatology, and even calls those who deny this analogy hypocrites. In a more concrete way, Jesus mocks the commonplace attitude which predicted future events on the basis of visible signs, stars, and planets, but also the color of “the appearance of the sky.” His claim is that if we are capable of telling the future concerning earthly things, we need to see ourselves even more capable of telling the imminent eschatological future. The reason for this is that the eschatological future is present in the person of the parable teller. It is the actually present divine person that declares the mysteries of the future as the mystery of the present. In other words, it is not some mystical or dogmatic revelation that one needs to scrutinize but the living presence of revelation, radical revelation in the fact of overwhelming freedom. It is the Dasein of radical revelation that declares the real future that is present; it is the presence of this revelation that teaches us to understand the entire context of our lives. And it is the very person as being present that declares this single truth with a remarkable force, in itself one of “the signs of the times.”

11 A similar passage runs as follows: “He also said to the multitudes, When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” (Lk. 12:54–56).

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Radical revelation as radiance has the following structure. First, it takes as its basis a natural kind of behavior (inspecting the sky to forecast weather). Second, it adds the transcendent parallel to this and points out that eschatology must be understood and judged in a similar way. Third, the very fact of this pronouncement must be deemed as the realization of revelation in the fact of this pronouncement itself (because Jesus is the personal bearer of radical revelation). This threefold structure is indeed Trinitarian, yet its emphasis is on the radicality of the revealing person. How is it that “you know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” The question calls for an answer: We, hypocrites, cannot discern the signs of the times, because we believe that these signs are insignificant or just about everyday circumstances, such as the weather tomorrow. In reality, however, the signs seemingly insignificant are the very signs of the times; and if we could really read the face of the sky— if we were ever able to be anything else than hypocrites—we would understand the direct presence of revelation or apokalypsis. We would understand that revelation is radically there in the radiant freedom of its revealer. It is a deep-seated hypocrisy that hinders us in recognizing the freedom of revelation and giving ourselves fully to this freedom. f. Transfiguration This radiant freedom is even more clearly expressed in one of the central events of the gospels, the scene of transfiguration. Jesus takes three of his disciples to a high mountain apart from their regular living places. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light. (Mt. 17:2)

The verb “transfigured” (μετεμορφώθη) is on the one hand of a general meaning of change; on the other hand, as, for instance, Ovid’s Metamorphoses also suggests, the expression is paradigmatically momentous: in the pre-Christian world it referred to the change permeating all nature and culminating in the divinization of exceptional heroes. However, Jesus’s transfiguration is set in the context of the Old Testament: the two figures appearing to him are Moses and Elijah that represent the legalistic and the prophetic traditions of the Tanakh. Together with them, Jesus reveals a Trinitarian conception in which he appears as one of the three defining principles of the unity of old and new, Judaism and Christianity. His role in this structure is that of the Spirit, the renovator of tradition in a new way which connects tradition and future into an organic whole, perhaps even in the way of “making three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” The three “booths” clearly refer to a Trinitarian notion of reality in which the founder, the developer, and the fulfiller are considered in their ultimate unity. They also refer to the meaningful unity of history inasmuch as Jesus is received in the community of the holy ones of old. Theologically, the transfiguration reveals the power of renewal, focused in the

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figure of Christ, of the divine not only in the historical sense but also in its ad intra reality. Traditionally, Jesus’s transfiguration has been understood as a prophetic and visionary sign proleptically referring to his resurrection and glorification. In our context, nevertheless, I  consider it rather as displaying a stronger emphasis on the radiant character of Jesus’s teachings. Either in a parable or a saying, either is a question or a short answer, the radiant freedom of Jesus’s character is clearly expressed. This radiance is elevated into a higher dimension in the story of transfiguration. It is not only Jesus’s words or deeds that are shining, but his entire being. It is not only the radical freedom of revelation that is expressed in his behavior, but an absolute freeness with an absolute radicality: the event of transfiguration is beyond the level of the conceivable, yet it fits in with the structure of revelation. Transfiguration is revelation; it is a free act of Jesus, as the story shows, and thus it refers to the high and free spontaneity of revelation. As revelation it is not only radical and free but deeply Trinitarian as well. How can we understand the final words of Jesus in this story? And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of man is raised from the dead.” (Mt. 17:9)

If transfiguration is to be understood as a gesture of the fact of freedom, a gesture showing a higher level of radiance and transparency, why does Jesus forbid his disciples informing anybody about this occurrence? First of all, Jesus terms the occurrence “a vision” (ὅραμα), that is to say, a fact beyond the level of plain optical reality. The expression of “vision” involves a subjective feature, thus the command given to the disciples may have concerned this element in their understanding. However, it seems to be more important to note that the transfiguration is not yet the ultimate disclosure of radical revelation. It is certainly the revelation of freedom, it is certainly about the Trinity, and yet it is not on the level of the full revelation of radicality. Indirect self-revelation culminates in the revelation of the self as radical personhood. Radical revelation will culminate in the fact of apocalyptic personhood. On the level of transfiguration, radical revelation is on its way to a full expression. It is a sign of the coming fulfillment. Yet the content of transfiguration remains proleptic and does not express the full reality of the ultimate divine freedom embodied in the resurrection. Transfiguration is the proleptic gesture of the fact of freedom of radical revelation, yet a gesture sufficiently powerful to express the transcendent and immanent dimensions of this freedom. Its full significance is given only in the resurrection and the disciples had to wait until the realization of this perspective to understand properly the importance of the transfiguration. In a paradigmatic context, all exemplifications of freedom are understood properly only in the context of the ultimate fact of radical revelation. Our minor free decisions in everyday life paradigmatically refer to fundamental decisions, such as not to betray a friend, not to serve an oppressive totalitarian state, or to accept the other person as a spouse in marriage. Such decisions nevertheless gain a higher importance when one accepts the ultimate freedom of radical revelation in

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his or her entire life. And such a personal decision is again a paradigmatic occurrence referring to the full freedom of radical revelation itself, a freedom composed of an infinite series of ultimate decisions of radically revealing divine reality so that partaking in it may become possible. g. Kenosis I have already described the notion of kenosis above in the context of indirect selfrevelation as the revelation of radical personhood. In the present context, I consider kenosis as the gesture of freedom characteristic of radical revelation. Radical revelation is the unity of direct and indirect self-revelations with an emphasis on their core freedom; the gestures of freedom are such that they express radical revelation in various ways, primarily in ways available in our everyday experience. These everyday experiences of freedom paradigmatically refer to the core freedom of radical revelation; they help us realize the nature and importance of radical revelation. As examples of this core freedom I have chosen aspects of the life of Jesus in the gospels and show in them the intricate complexity of Trinitarian dimensions and average human experience. Kenosis is looked at here in the same fashion; and it is seen not merely in the context of radical personhood but rather in view of apocalyptic personhood. Since, as we read in Philippians 2: Therefore God has highly exalted (ὑπερύψωσεν) him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2.9–11)

Kenotic personhood has thus two sides: on the one hand, it does not consider divinity “a robbery” and renounces it as such; on the other hand, it is elevated above “every name” and is the proper receiver of universal worship. In the very gesture of kenosis, the latter aspect of kenotic personhood is already present proleptically. It is the deep significance of self-emptying that it is never identical with a self-humiliation we often see in our communities. Rather, self-emptying in the genuine kenotic sense has already in the very act of renouncing the perspective of exaltation; kenosis is thus an exalted self-humbling and a humble self-exaltation. This relation is clearly witnessed in the gospels where Jesus never humiliates himself: he suffers, he cries, he weeps, he is sorrowful, he is emotionally moved, he perhaps even smiles or laughs as well, but he never loses dignity. Even when investigated and tortured, even when he carries the cross and suffers, even when he dies of pains and suffocation—he never loses dignity. His suffering is such that it does not humiliate but rather dignifies him. In his human misery he is already above base human humiliations: a fact shown clearly by his answers given to the high priest or to Pilate in accordance with the texts of the gospels. However, this kenosis is wide open to the exaltation given to Jesus. He does not consider divinity a robbery, and does not consider humility a means to recover divinity. He accepts humility, misery, humbleness, and the entire human form

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with a natural gesture of freedom, and he accepts with the same gesture of elevated freedom the exaltation given to him by “in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” This spontaneous divinity is what I  find here the most significant:  while descending into the human form, Jesus does not suspend divinity, he only hides it into the human form. And while reaching again the highness of being, he receives back his manifest divinity with the same free spontaneity. The two movements of being—one descending and one elevating, one leading to the particular and one leading to the universal—are movements which do not exclude each other:  the same Jesus is humbled and elevated at the same time and in the same context. He is elevated and humbled and humbled and elevated. All this is carried out in full freedom and in a natural way that is not overwritten by the supernatural, or in a supernatural way that is not abolished by the natural. The ultimate perspective, nevertheless, is not merely the free naturalness that is given in his gestures. It is rather his absolute power that is shown to be so close yet distant at the same time. It is the closeness and distance of radical revelation with the clear perspective of apocalyptic personhood that is central here. The kenotic freedom of radical revelation has as its principle the motto of the present work: Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. (Lk. 12:2)

We are in the midst of the intricate structures of a one-sided kenosis of radical personhood. Radical personhood is unavoidable. Yet it must always be seen in this ultimate perspective of the full freedom of “nothing covered.” For indeed, the Trinitarian perspective of kenosis dictates this openness:  Every knee bows to him in heaven and on earth and under the earth; and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. On the one hand, Jesus is seen in a cosmic-universal context of a three-level universe of the ancients (heaven, earth, under the earth); on the other hand, he fulfills his Trinitarian role when he instigates the confession of the glory of fatherhood. Fatherhood, sonship, and spiritedness are the three dimensions of the fullness of kenotic freedom that is realized here. In the chronological order, the various phases of kenosis appear to cover one another: self-humbling does not let us see the exalted Jesus and the exalted Lord appears to abolish the self-humbling servant. Yet there is a deeper layer expressed in the chronological one, namely, the core Trinitarian reality of the economy of salvation. In this reality, we still keep the various aspects defined and separate, that is, the human and the divine natures of the Lord do not abolish one another. Yet they refer to one another in such a way that through the one we perceive the other and we perceive, in this Ineinandersein, the true reality of divinity as self-humbling and self-elevating at the same time. These moments are like the golden and silver components of an artistic filigree: they are never mixed up but still have a common visual effect, the so-called filigree effect, which is genuinely unique and produced by the mutual mirroring of the golden and silver parts of the artwork. In a similar way, the self-humbling and self-elevating moments of the process of kenosis do not

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get confused yet they realize a new synthesis, a kenotic effect, as it were, in which a new quality of the divine is born. In the Trinity, we witness the common and unified reality of the phases of economy in the form of radical revelation.12 All this has its relevance in the context of the freedom of radical revelation. Its freedom is naturally supernatural and supernaturally natural. Its self-emptying is always situated in the cosmic-universal fullness of everything; and the confession it triggers reaches the unity of being and persons, the self in its free concreteness. Kenotic freedom is indeed at the same time intra- and extra-Trinitarian— inasmuch as it is the one, it is at the same time the other—and reveals the ultimate possibility of freedom far beyond our narrow conceptions of positive and negative freedom or legal and logical liberties. If radical revelation has an important contribution to our discussions on freedom, then it is this kenotic notion of freedom: never isolated, never one-sided, never one factor of a plurality of factors, but always the whole in its complexity and relations, always the concrete freedom of renouncement and elevation, death and life, beginning and fulfillment. h. Overcoming The eighth gesture of freedom is an organic continuation of the previous gestures of Birth, Growth, Entry, Healing, Radiance, and Transfiguration. In kenosis, freedom is expressed in its ultimate reality of the unity as self-humbling and self-elevation. Overcoming is understood as the fulfillment of kenotic freedom. Indeed, reality is not just an intricate Ineinandersein of various components but also an ultimate unity which explicitly realizes a new synthesis. Radical revelation as the revelation of the fact of freedom points to an ultimate victory in the sense alone appropriate here. This victory is never destruction but always fulfillment; it is never elimination but always inclusion. It is never a robbery and never a renouncing but an acknowledgment and an accomplishment. The fact of freedom can be limited, isolated, weakened, or even humiliated, but these moments are and remain just moments of a whole which is absolute, ultimate, and comprehensive. The fact of freedom is comprehensive and radical revelation is all-pervasive. It follows that the Good must always have defeated and must always defeat the evil.13

12 The “filigree effect” (être en filigrane) was described and interpreted philosophically by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in La Nature. Notes Course du Collège de France (Paris:  Seuil, 1995), pp. 269–70. See also Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, pp. 290–2. In the present context I offer a Trinitarian interpretation of this unique artistic phenomenon. 13 Plato, Epinomis 988e. Cf. Plato, The Complete Works, ed. John M.  Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), p. 1630. However, νενικηκέναι (“defeated”) is better translated as “overcome” or “conquered.” The Good, according to the author, never “annihilates” evil but only puts it in the context of accomplished reality.

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This Platonic notion is crucial here, because it dispels the illusion that the reality of evil can ever be more significant than what is given to it in a concrete situation. The reality of evil cannot be denied, not even radical evil—the root of evil in Kant’s sense—or diabolical evil, the evil done for its own sake. We need to have an eye on the reality of evil and never undervalue its concrete powers. Yet freedom overcomes evil and it has already overcome it in and by the very fact of freedom. Freedom is origin, source, it is becoming and being. Evil is always limitation and isolation, the centripetal movement of being on the path of ever growing nothingness. The positivity of evil lies in its inner connection to freedom, that is, in freedom’s fight to overcome its own limitations and weaknesses. As an answer to the positivity of evil an ever greater positivity of goodness is given—precisely in the ever growing fact of freedom. In other words, evil is not undone by limitation or restraint, but rather by the ever more generous and ever richer fact of freedom. The gesture of overcoming is overcoming limitations inasmuch as possible and reasonable. It is a gesture of ever greater freedom as a reply given to the isolating force of evil, and it is a gesture of synthesis which saves everything valuable and integrates it into the dynamism of radical revelation. Look at the implications of this notion in the context of radical revelation. On an elementary level of learning we find a metaphysical dualism which emphasizes the evilness of evil and the goodness of the good and points out the necessity of defeating evil and supporting the good in our lives and in the lives of others; also in the context of intellectual battles. It is already a more proper understanding of the nature of reality when we realize that evil is dependent on the good and the accepting of evil—always in the perspective of goodness—contributes to the reality of goodness. Good and evil are not opposites of a simple polarity but they rather constitute a subaltern opposition. Goodness is always greater and the reality of evil must be seen in the context of the good. However, on this level we find a metaphysics of opposites which tends to undervalue the reality of evil. The positivity of the latter, first theoretically described by Kant, is a crucially important step in order to understand the metaphysical power of goodness. There belong to this understanding the theosophical theories of Schelling, for instance, which emphasize the positive role of negativity or “evil” in the self-realization of goodness. Actually, the fundamental teaching of Christianity is close to this latter understanding: we normally interpret the death of the second person of the Trinity in this perspective and consider his sufferings as the way to a greater good embodied in the resurrection. And even if this is an important understanding, it is not yet the most genuine understanding which points out the ultimately victorious nature of goodness. Goodness is such that it synthesizes everything and produces absolute newness. While this point is implicit in all other theories I just summarized, the emphasis is very important: eventually we need to understand that the fundamental relationship of reality is not a polarity, not even a nonproportional polarity of good and evil, but rather the absolute unity of goodness in its synthetic activity expressed in radical revelation. This activity is articulated in the Platonic sentence I quoted above and this activity is realized in many of the stories of the gospels— especially the stories of healing and overcoming.

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As mentioned earlier, I did not list the miracles of resurrection among the miracles of Jesus. The reason of this omission may have become clear by now: resurrecting the dead and resurrection itself is the ultimate deed of overcoming, the realization of absolute freedom in the most comprehensive sense. When Lazarus is resurrected (Jn 11:39), Martha advises Jesus: “by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus, nevertheless, does not take heed of Martha’s words, or if he did, he did it because he wanted to show that the power of life is greater than any other power. The power of freedom does not destroy other powers but integrates them into its own reality. Jesus resurrects Lazarus with his stinking and disintegrating body and gives life to him anew. Thus freedom overwrites the servitude of death, and goodness overcomes the slavery of destruction. This miracle of Jesus points to the ultimate overcoming realized by himself in the event of resurrection. On the one hand, Jesus’s victory is already present in a nutshell in the fate of radical personhood: in the tortures and death of a person, because in this loss the loss of something infinitely greater is realized. On the other hand, this minimal presence brings its fruit in the very event of resurrection. The resurrected person of Jesus is different yet indeed the same that was killed before. There is a unity of bodies in the resurrected person and there is a personal identity as well. There are not two personalities, one dead and another resurrected, and not two bodies, one dead and stinking, the other radiant and spiritual. On the contrary, the person and his body are the same in death and in resurrection, as otherwise the gesture of overcoming could not achieve overcoming itself. Overcoming death has a meaning if and only if the one who overcomes is identical with the one overcome, and the resurrected I is identical with the I who died. In this community of death and life it is nevertheless the even greater power of life that proves to be victorious. In this unity of waning and rising, it is the greater fact of freedom that emerges as the original and ultimate fact of reality. A one-sided kenotic understanding may emphasize the former, the significance of death and non-freedom. Yet it is always life and freedom that is more important, decisive, and determining. In the gesture of overcoming, radical revelation fulfills its movement and reaches its accomplishment. The gestures of radical revelation may be complemented or detailed in further ways. It may be pointed out that every single gesture contains all the other gestures in a nutshell, or that every single gesture has its own history, as it were, in the development of other gestures. Thus Birth permeates all the others and has a varied presence in them. In the gesture of Birth and in the gesture of Overcoming, all the gestures have their main focuses. However, Overcoming is present already in Birth, since every birth is an overcoming. Kenosis is present in Radiance and Radiance in Kenosis. So much so that we could already understand that these gestures constitute a whole, and their contents can be thought of as eternally determining figures of the fact of freedom. Thereby this fact emerges as a complexity of plurality and unity, indeed, the dance of reality in which beginning and end, structure and rhythm, movement and pause flow together into one synthetic and dynamic whole. They constitute the reality of radical revelation as the expressions and realizations of freedom. Radical revelation is indeed a reality that is

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pervasive: it is directly present yet infinitely distant at the same time. While it can be described on the basis of models, such as the models of “gestures,” radical revelation flows over such models and enters the life of concrete human persons. We are never isolated from the reality of radical revelation, while we may tend to isolate ourselves from the awareness of its ubiquitous presence. And yet this presence is overwhelming and overcoming. It influences our thoughts and life, our gestures and thinking, our wording and phrasing as well. It influences not only the life of the individuals, but that of communities and histories as well, and even if political voluntarism may want to deny it, it is radical revelation that determines the fate of the nations and cultures. We are indeed invited to cooperate in and take responsibility for this process. But the freedom we partake in thereby is not the freedom of emptiness, but the freedom of ultimate meaning, which awaits its realization. By partaking in this realization we partake in the fact of radical revelation, and by strengthening our freedom along the lines of the gestures I delineated means strengthening the fact of radical revelation. As Augustine formulated it: When you think these things, it is the word of God in your heart.

This understanding is what one likes to believe, but the ever greater fact of freedom must make one cautious to distance oneself from directness and avoid considering “robbery” what is, in the last analysis, a pure gift.

5. Radical Re-velation One of the central subject matters of Karl Barth’s The Epistle to the Romans is the unknowability of God: “To us God is, and remains, unknown.”14 The Unknown God (ἄγνωστος θεός, Acts 17:23) is the God that cannot be made an idol of human comprehension and worship. He is the one beyond all human powers. He is, by his being beyond, the very source of everything, human beings included, and he is the source of ultimate salvation. In dialectical theology, to every Yes of human beings to God there stands a No by God; and to every No by human beings there is a Yes of God. Yes and No are dialectically related to one another and they mutually complement each other. Yet there is positive complementarity in this synthesis—a point fundamentally different from Hegel’s notion of dialectics—because Yes and No are not simply added together to give a sum but they form an incomprehensible relationship. The ultimate fact in which this relationship becomes tangible is the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

14 Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1968), p.  86. With a number of other translations RSVCE translates Ἀγνώστῳ θεῷ as “To an unknown god.” However, the use of the indefinite article goes against the millennia-long interpretation of this passage which considered Acts 17:23 as a reference to the not yet recognized reality of the Trinity.

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We find similar trains of thoughts from the beginnings of Christian theology, such as the works of Dionysius the Areopagite to Hans Urs von Balthasar. The incomprehensibility of God is indeed a fundamental Christian teaching, always nevertheless with the careful addition that this incomprehensibility is never of a human kind. It is dialectical, complex, self-negating and selfaffirming, or—to put it even more complexly—it is a comprehensible incomprehensibility and an incomprehensible comprehensibility. As we saw in the case of Dionysius above, we need to be careful with any simplification in this matter, because a simple denial characteristic of apophatism would be just as misleading as the simple affirmation of kataphatism. Barth’s emphasis on an absolute incomprehensibility is carefully pronounced, because the fact of the revelation of God in Christ is comprehensible. “Finitum non capax infiniti”— the finite is incapable of conceiving the infinite—is a dictum most often considered as describing properly Barth’s views concerning the relationship between human beings and God. Revelation, along the same lines, cannot be a mere positivity. It has the concrete content of salvific factuality in the person of Christ, yet as the revelation of God it maintains a dialectical feature of complexity and incomprehensibility. Revelation is at the same time re-velation (an emphatic “velatio” or concealment), inasmuch as it not only discloses God but also hides him. It is the salvific freedom of God to decide if revelation results in faith in one case or in unbelief in another case. Whatever God is and does is not the matter of a simple description, and revelation is of the same character. It seems that even the fundamental fact of revelation is such that it is open to the view that denies its factuality. As mentioned above, the Latin word for revelation has three possible meanings: revealing, veiling again, and veiling or concealing emphatically.15 Already on the philological level the negative meanings appear to be stronger:  revealing is embedded in veiling again and veiling strongly. While the everyday use of revelation is far from suggesting this complexity, we still may elaborate this point with respect to the meaning of radical revelation. Let us therefore use the philological aspects only as a reminder of the complex notion we have here. As already suggested with respect to apophatic theology, there is indeed a strong attraction to realize a theology in which negation overwrites positive statements. Following this approach, we may certainly agree that a given linguistic-cultural situation, and especially the varying capabilities a concrete person possesses, makes it plausible to suggest that positive statements concerning the divine are always to be considered in the context of their inappropriateness to describe the absolute from a concrete point of view. A point of view seems by definition unable to grasp a whole, and a relative approach seems incapable of offering an understanding of the absolute. In this sense, divine revelation is such that inasmuch as it is received as revelation it necessarily entails a point of view, and thereby it entails an approach to the absolute that destroys the absolute in its absoluteness. Revelation is thus just

15 Cf. Chapter 3, section 2, “The Grammar of Self-Revelation.”

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so much veiling than it is revealing, and the absoluteness of revelation remains hidden behind the veil of incomprehensibility. Dialectical theology, nevertheless, emphasizes the inner relation between revelation and veiling or hiding. Revelation is necessarily fact-like, but this fact can never be fully grasped, and in particular it cannot be comprehended by the human mind. In every factual revelation the mystery of the absolute remains hidden, and while every mystery is expressed to some extent and can be received by faith—in particular by faith in Jesus Christ—even faith remains unable to scrutinize the depth of the divine. The human mind, either with or without faith, is nonproportionally related to the divine, and while it is true that it can be aware of this connection, this awareness is not sufficient to bridge the gap between the finite and the infinite, the created and the creator. The divine is present for the human world in history, faith, and even in culture, but this presence is veiled, hidden, obscure, and ambiguous. Thus, radical revelation turns out to be radical re-velation. It is re-velation not merely in the sense that in every fact of revelation there lies a deeper dimension of hiding, it is re-velation in the temporal sense as well. For, as one may argue, since the time of Jesus’s earthly ministry, and his dispensing of the elevated message of revelation, humanity has fallen back into unbelief and the validity of revelation has been questioned or even dismissed. Revelation has led to re-velation in the chronological order, and the mysteries of faith are now buried under the skepticism of ignorance. Today, in the midst of a multicultural and pluralist world, revelation in the original sense of the Christian word has lost its plausibility and to regain it would not lead us anywhere: either we accept a multiple religious culture with equal emphasis on all the various centers of spirituality around the world, or else we withdraw into a religious sectarianism or even fundamentalism which poses various dangers to contemporary societies. Thus the best thing that may happen to the notion of revelation is the strengthening of its re-velational character by letting it be absorbed by cultural forgetfulness. Whoever followed my arguments will see right away that this approach to radical revelation as merely or emphatically re-velation cannot be brought into line with my main points. It is not about the question of our nonproportional relationship with the divine; it is not about denying that the finite and the infinite are different, and it is not about forgetting the values of all the rich religious or quasi-religious cultures which have become accessible for humanity in a pluralistic world. However, the history of humankind needs to be clearly understood, and in spite of all the abuses of freedom, the history of freedom has been a uniquely significant achievement. In spite of the misuse of human persons in all the tragic ways the twentieth century taught us to suffer, the emergence of human personhood, together with the notion of its appropriate dignity, has been the historic result of the Christian heritage. Notions like God and the world, as I argued above, have gone through the same process of gradual formation, and the very notion of revelation is again the output of a complex history which has resulted in our contemporary understandings. There is an intrinsic positivity and universality in the notion of revelation which cannot and should not be swept aside, and the notion

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of radical revelation as the revelation of the fact of freedom in direct and indirect self-revelation, as I developed this notion in the above paragraphs, is again a positive achievement which needs to be carefully investigated. The ultimate positivity of radical revelation cannot be dissolved in a dialectical ambiguity or in a purely negative theology. Negative theology, as I showed, turns out to be fundamentally positive, and the echoes of the apophatic approach, which emphasize a one-sided negativity, may just misunderstand the original texts of Dionysius and mistake their paradigmatic character for the language of mysticism. Even dialectical theology may commit the fundamental mistake of not giving sufficient attention to the fact of revelation, for this fact is certainly infinitely rich and complex, yet its factual character should never be mistaken for a theological position. Revelation is not a theological position, not a narrative, but a fact, and radical revelation is a radical fact of and in our lives. The emphasis on the fact character of revelation calls for an appropriate understanding (though certainly not comprehension), and the notion of radical revelation, based on the notion of self-revelation, seems to be the well-formed notion that can be reached in the framework of a nonstandard radical philosophical theology. Thus I  do not deny the complexity and mysteriousness of radical revelation. There is a nonproportional relationship between the finite and the infinite. Yet the entire history of revelation, and especially the texts of the New Testament, teaches us to understand the deeper nature of this nonproportional relationship. It is not only that we are aware of the fact of the disproportion between the divine and the human, but we are aware of it in a complex way, that is, in a way proleptically directed to the understanding of our faith in God. It has never been the task of theology properly speaking to argue for its axioms. If, however, these axioms can be argued for, we need a discipline that does not consider revelation an axiom. We need a discipline that accepts revelation as a fundamental fact. In the framework of a radical philosophical theology we can scrutinize the nature of this fact in its historical and cultural contexts, and this goal is served by the methodology explained here. Among the gestures of freedom, we have already come to the biblical descriptions of resurrection. It is important to consider these descriptions, because we may understand some curious features of revelation as it is expounded by these archaic texts. The stories of resurrection are not only complex and even slightly contradictory, but they offer substantial material for arguments against the reality of resurrection. For instance, Matthew mentions the suspicion of “the chief priests and the elders of the people” to the effect that disciples may steal the dead body of Jesus and then spread the forged news of his resurrection; this text calls Jesus an “imposter” (πλάνος, Mt. 27:63). Mark seems to confirm this suspicion, because one of the disciples, Joseph of Arimathea, in fact “asked for the body of Jesus” (Mk 15:43) and hid it in a different place. The Gospel of Luke repeats this motive and adds further details of wrapping the body in linen. John names Nicodemus as the one who took the body. The motive of taking the body to another place is in itself already disconcerting, and the motive of the empty tomb adds a further emphasis to the rare outlines of the story. In all biblical descriptions of the resurrection there

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are unequivocal references to perplexity and embarrassment. Mark mentions Pilate who “wondered if he [Jesus] was already dead” (Mk 15:44). When Jesus appears to the women and the disciples, the first reaction is again doubt and suspicion. The recurring mention of angels and the “gardener” contributes to the overall picture that the authors of these texts wished to offer their readers every possibility of doubting the exact course of resurrection, even the fact of resurrection itself. Such descriptions were produced with the awareness that the revelation of resurrection needs to be open to doubt. We may understand this editorial strategy as a challenge to faith in view of strengthening it inasmuch as possible; or again we can understand it along the pattern of revelation as re-velation. As to the former, pedagogy must have played indeed an important role in the composition of these texts; as to the latter, there is the weightier consideration leading the reader to the insight that revelation entails re-velation, and faithful certainty must not exclude but rather include the power of doubt. It belongs to the general pattern of radical revelation that it does not eliminate dimensions of reality but rather includes them in its own contexts. For in their general message, the texts are positive about the fact of resurrection; and the Pauline letters even claim that “[i]f Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile” (1 Cor. 15:17). This positivity of resurrection is so clearly stated in the New Testament that doubting could have only a limited role to play. Yet doubting was allowed into the description, because revelation is precisely such that it involves all the elements opposing its fundamental structure. In this sense the point about revelation as re-velation has its legitimate significance. Yet re-velation cannot supersede the fact of revelation, and radical revelation cannot be seen as fundamentally hiding or non-uncovering. Beyond all dialectics of revelation and re-velation, the unity of revelation is ensured by it complex, detailed, and structured factual character.

6. Radical Revelation as apokalypsis In this section, I want to connect the philosophical notion of radical revelation to the biblical notion of the apocalypse and show the latter’s significance in the former in a more concrete way. The notion of “revelation” comes from the Greek apokalypsis, as we saw above; and the Greek word’s primary reference has been the biblical Book of Revelation. Centuries long research into the theological and cultural history of this text has shown its extraordinary character. There were influential Church leaders that did not accept the apostolic origin of the book, such as the Antiochian Fathers, Luther, and Zwingli. And there have been theologians in great numbers that found it difficult to reconcile the form and content of Revelation with the rest of the New Testament writings in general, spiritual, and theological terms.16 At the same time, Revelation has been a solid part of the canon from

16 See Judith Kovacs and Christopher Rowland, Revelation (London: Blackwell, 2004), Introduction.

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the beginnings (not counting sectarian movements that wished to cut it out with some other New Testament writings). The basis of the strong canonical tradition may not have been only that Revelation claims to be God’s message given to Jesus Christ so that Jesus would transfer it to his “servant John” by means of an angelic messenger. Beyond the delicate question of authority, the final place of the text in the New Testament conveyed something crucially important about the horizon of Christianity: its emphasis on the “end of the times.” The doctrine of the Last Judgment, a solid part of the Christian teaching from the beginning, was underpinned by the Book of Revelation with the unique power of apocalyptic imagination. Finally, Revelation is closely intertwined with the Old Testament, especially with its apocalyptic literature and thus confirms the unity of the Christian Bible. The most important characteristic of the Book of Revelation is its dramatic content: the description of an ultimate confrontation between divine and evil forces. It is indeed a drama, as John Wick Bowman showed, and as Francesca Murphy also emphasized, Like a Greek tragedy, Revelation has a prologue (1:1–8) and an epilogue (22:6– 21). This leaves us with seven “visions” or Acts.17

A drama is about the true self. Revelation, in this sense, is not only a drama, but dramatic as well in the general sense, because the opposing forces “achieve their moral identity in relation to the Truth or Lie to which they witness.”18 The warfare in the heaven and on the earth discloses earlier unknown potencies of both sides: not only the divine, represented by astrological allegories, shows unexpected output of energy, but also the evil powers are able to reorganize themselves and carry on with the war for a long time.19 In all the dramatic changes, however, the reader is time and again assured of the unavoidable final victory of Christ, represented in various ways. From the beginning of the book, it is firmly announced that I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. (Rev. 1:8)

While this transcendental framework is clearly set, the dramatic developments often suggest the possibility of the victory of the powers of evil. The revelation of divine secrets generates by themselves new waves of afflictions and tribulations; as it were, the divine itself generates the birth of new evils. The final victory of the divine 17 Francesca Murphy, The Comedy of Revelation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), p. 212. 18 Murphy, Comedy of Revelation p. 214. 19 The first author that systematically analyzed the astronomical contents of the Book of Revelation was Charles Dupuis in 1792 (see the shorter English translation of his work published as The Origin of All Religious Worship (New Orleans: 1872; reprint by Garland Publications, New York, 1984).

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evolves only gradually in the midst of seemingly chaotic scenes, and it is Christ who activates the dramatic developments by opening the seven-sealed scroll with the divine decrees that govern all history. The outpouring of dramatic events contains not only the persecution of God’s elect but also the conflict between Judaism and the Christians, with the prophecy of the final conversion of the Jews to Christ (3:9). The emphasis on the Jews as “the synagogue of the Satan” leaves little doubt that this strange opposition belongs to the heart of the composition. If we do not count the visionary person, John, the number of negative figures outnumbers the positive ones; and the details of activities also suggest the extraordinary variety and powers of the evil forces. However, the apocalyptic battle slowly turns in favor of the divine powers. The great harlot Babylon is destroyed and Christ appears on a white horse in garments red with his own blood. Satan is chained and cast into the hell, and the New Jerusalem, expressing the birth of the new creation, descends from the heaven. In the center of this new reality, we see the throne of God and the Lamb. However, a final temptation must be resisted, namely, that John worships the angel that conveyed the visions to him. As the angel clarifies, You must not do that! I am a fellow-servant with you and your comrades the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God! (Rev. 22:9)

Initially, one can find it difficult to connect the theoretical notion of radical revelation with the main contents and form of the Book of Revelation. Nevertheless, if we focus on the main features of the text, and sufficiently clarify its form, the connections become visible. Let me emphasize these features: ●

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Apocalypse appears as the development of the disclosure of the ultimate truth of God; This development is realized through a symbolically represented confrontation between good and evil; The confrontation is triggered by the inner process of revelation; and its fulfillment requires total self-donation to the divine, expressed especially in in such figures as the Lamb of God.

As to the form of the Book of Revelation, I would stress the following: First, divine revelation begins with the total revelation of “the first and the last,” “the alive and the dead,” who has “the keys of hell and death” (“Hades” or the netherworld). Everything begins with his having the keys of hell and death, because what develops subsequently is the ever greater influence of death and destruction. Indeed, this consequence is already given in the fact that the bearer of revelation is “alive” though he was “dead.” However, “the first and the last” is connected to life in various ways: he is alive forevermore, he has “the lively fountains of waters,”

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“the tree of life,” “the crown of life,” he is lord of “the book of life.” Life and death are dialectically linked in the text, yet with a growing emphasis on “the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1). Revelation is seen in this text as radical—that is, original—life, which needs to go through death so that it reaches a higher form of life. The way from life to death and from death to life is described as an historical process indicative of the depth of the divine. Indeed, revelation is the process disclosing the divine and opposing the forces against this disclosure (see, for instance, Michael’s casting Satan to earth; Rev. 12:7–12). The divine, moreover, is often understood along the lines of Hellenistic cosmo-theology, as it is clearly shown by the recurring role of astronomical numbers and symbols, such as “the morning star” (Rev. 2:28; 22:16). Yet the text is deeply biblical, often referring to the Old Testament and also to the figure of Jesus as is known from the gospels. Indeed, some of the sayings of Jesus in the Book of Revelation may belong to the core material of the gospels tradition, such as It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I  will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life. (Rev. 21:6)

The fact that the Book of Revelation is a synthesis of ad intra and ad extra revelation shows its connection to the philosophical notion of revelation as I have outlined it in the previous chapters. It is a synthesis, and yet it is at the same time more emphatically about the ad intra dimensions of revelation. The key figures of the descriptions are divine or half-divine beings that belong, or used to belong, to the reality of God in intricate ways. It is indeed the reality of God that is disclosed in the descriptions; and this reality is intimately connected to the course of human history. The fact of creation is not denied, it is even emphasized that God’s revelation aims at a new creation. Yet the course of creation is intimately linked to the inner life of God. The emphasis on worship, the exaltation of God and similar features make it impossible to interpret the unity of ad intra and ad extra revelation in pantheistic terms. Yet the close connection of the two makes it evident that the course of creation, the realm of ad extra revelation, constitutes in a sense the inner life of the divine with its angels and Elders, the Son of Man, the Lamb, and the Woman “clothed with the sun” (Rev. 12:1). If we want to express the central message of the text about the inner reality of God in one word, then this word is newness. All battles with the powers of evil, all sacrifice of martyrs and the Lamb of God point to the ultimate and magnificent idea which describes God’s reality in terms of radical newness. The text speaks of a “new name that no one knows except the one who receives it” (2:17); of “the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven” (3:12); a new song (5:9); and most importantly it speaks about “a new heaven, and a new earth; for the first heaven, and the first earth had passed away” (21:1). This central notion is expressed in the words of God:

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See, I am making all things new. (Rev 21:5)

This newness is the common newness of the divine and the non-divine, the first and the last, the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem. Something more than just metaphysical newness is detectable at every juncture of creation: the absolute newness, expressed in a symbolic language, of the divine. While the ontological context is given in “the first and the last,” the radical meaning of this context is precisely the newness. The complicated, Old and New Testament related Hellenistic symbolisms clearly point to this ultimate meaning, the meaning of newness in the most overall sense we can conceive of. Revelation, thus, takes the process of revelation as that of history and eternity, human and divine at the same time. The two dimensions refer to one another and while they form a nonproportional relationship, they are nevertheless interpreted in each other’s context. This notion, again, is deeply philosophical, or to put it more precisely, the notion of radical revelation as conceived in this work is underpinned by the theoretical contents of the final book of the New Testament in a surprising fashion. The complicated symbolism may divert the reader’s attention from the uniquely clear ideas in the texts, ideas which have appeared in various context of my above arguments. Historically speaking, the concept of self-revelation is a relatively late development, yet in the Book of Revelation revelation is about God’s self-disclosure. The special connection between the ad intra and ad extra dimensions of revelation may belong to a later terminology, yet the notion itself is contained in Revelation. Newness as the very core of divine reality was indeed formulated only centuries after the writing of the New Testament texts. Yet in the Book of Revelation newness appears as the proper expression of divine reality. Revelation thus goes far beyond the references we find in the gospels or other New Testament writings, because it formulates newness on a general level possible in the framework of the text’s symbolical language. It is important to distinguish between apokalypsis and eschatology. Both in the historical and theological senses, apocalypse is only introductory to the eskhata, “the last things.” The apocalypse is the disclosure of God’s ultimate salvation that is realized in a dramatic—in this sense, partially also tragic—process. Apocalypse is disclosure, namely, the ad intra life of God as it is organically connected to its economic ad extra activity. Yet “the last things” are about the ultimate judgment of God, the result of the final victory of the good over the evil, and the arrangement of universal salvation and damnation according to the position of the souls. However, apokalypsis and eskhaton are two dimensions of the same whole; the one refers to the process of revelation, the other to the content of this revelation in its final arrangement. Eschatology is the discipline that studies the contents of God’s final judgments as they are given in the Scriptures and the traditions, and eschatology also adds its theological interpretations. Apocalyptic phenomenology, however, is the study of the meaning of revelation in its historical, dogmatic, and cognitive connections. It is closely related to the nonstandard radical philosophical theology of revelation as it has been developed here. Yet while apocalyptic phenomenology

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may be understood as an historical-cultural theory, the radical theory of the present work is fundamentally philosophical. At the same time, I use the term “apocalyptic phenomenology” when I develop a phenomenological theory of revelation as revelation below.20 There is one more aspect of the text that must be mentioned concerning its connections to the notion of radical revelation: its emphasis on personhood. There are twenty-seven important figures in the Book of Revelation (some of them taken together, such as the four living creatures, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the four angels holding the four winds of the earth, etc.). It seems that half of these persons are evil, the other half are good. Some of the good persons turn out to be just one person, such as the one “who is seated on the throne” may be identical with God or Jesus, or the lion of Judah is definitely identical with “the Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes.” The identity of the evil figures is equally obscure. Readers today may fail to differentiate such figures as the lamb-like horned beast of the earth, the beast of the sea, the fiery red dragon with seven heads (“and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads”), or the beast of the sea having again seven heads and ten horns. It is difficult to identify the central evil figure in the text, but it is most probably Satan. Satan is mentioned eight times in the text. It is characteristic of his fluctuating identity that he is described as “the great dragon, that ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan” (12:9). However, the central positive figure of the text is clearly the Lamb. I shall discuss this particular feature of the text in the next chapter. Here we have already seen the important connections between the notion of radical revelation and the Book of Revelation. Radical revelation is the direct and indirect self-revelation of God. Radical revelation is centrally about the fact of freedom, and we just saw how the central feature of freedom, that is, its irreducible newness, occupies an important place in revelation. The fact of freedom makes the fact of revelation so overwhelming, and the newness in the Book of Revelation makes this text so impressive. Radical revelation is radical, because it reaches back to the very source of revelation, divine freedom, but the Book of Revelation is radical as well, not only because of its wild imagery, but much more because of its unparalleled emphasis on absolute newness.

20 In his various writings, Thomas Altizer emphasizes the connection between apokalypsis, apocalyptic history, and Trinitarian theology. I have difficulties in agreeing with some of his points, and the reasons for this must be clear to anybody knowing Altizer’s work. As explained already in the introduction to the present work, my understanding of the metaphysics of opposites differs from Altizer’s view and thus his conclusions and corollaries are different from the perspective I have explored above. See, for instance, the notion of kenosis and the related gestures of freedom: goodness is infinitely more than any of its opposites can be. Yet the philosophical theology of Altizer is among the important achievements of our age and needs to be critically analyzed.

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Finally, radical revelation points to the fact of personhood as apocalyptic personhood. Personhood again plays a central role in the symbolism of the Book of Revelation. Revelation emphasizes evil and good personhood, much more the latter than the former, because apocalyptic personhood is precisely such that it transcends radical personhood in its ultimate desolateness and considers the latter in the perspective of absolute renewal.

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Chapter 5 T HE R EVE L ATION OF A PO CALYP T IC P E RS ON HO OD

1. Preliminaries Revelation is essentially self-revelation, and the indirect form of self-revelation, revelation of the self, discloses the unity in plurality with special emphasis on radical personhood as the expression of self-revelation. Direct self-revelation is the revelation of revelation. We have considered its essential freedom in the “eight gestures” of freedom above. These gestures are unified in the personal core of direct self-revelation that integrates all the typical gestures I considered, and I call this the personal expression of direct self-revelation “apocalyptic personhood.” It is called so because of the intrinsic connections we find between the personal focus of a radical philosophical theology and the emphasis on personhood in the Book of Revelation. Both the indirect and the direct forms of self-revelation point to personhood as their core expression, and these two forms of personhood are unified in what I term “apocalyptic personhood.” In the present chapter I  consider the structures and the unity of apocalyptic personhood. Again, I shall use biblical materials to emphasize the most important points, and I shall use artistic representations as well to highlight various aspects of apocalyptic personhood. My intention is to show apocalyptic personhood not only as the core expression of radical revelation, but also as the self of the modern and contemporary human persons formed by the Christian traditions in intellectual and artistic cultures in such a way that without them the notion of human personhood today would not be conceivable, and what is more, its personal character, that is to say, its apocalyptic openness, could not have been sufficiently evolved. This openness is decisive for our notion of personhood today and it bears at the same time the possibility of further development. As always, this development has not been and does not seem to be unobstructed. It belongs indeed to apocalyptic personhood that it is naturally delivered over to challenges from opposing and even destructive forces. Thus apocalyptic personhood embodies in itself a confrontation, yet a confrontation already overcome and contained. In other words, apocalyptic personhood entails radical personhood on a higher level, while the latter points to the former by the very fact of its radicality. As quoted above, one of the biblical passages describing the nature of apocalyptic personhood is the text directly following the famous lines on kenosis:

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Therefore God also highly exalted (ὑπερύψωσεν) him and gave him the name that is above every name. (Phil. 2:9)

Apocalyptic personhood is dynamically exalted personhood that entails in itself the brokenness of radical personhood. Yet in apocalyptic personhood, a higher unity is disclosed which holds together not only the personhood open to suffering and death, but the various aspects of the apocalyptic dimension as well. A higher unity is discovered, then, in apocalyptic personhood, a unity open to its infinite fulfillment.

2. The Last Judgment of Michelangelo As an example for what I just said let us consider one of the classic representations of apocalyptic personhood: the figure of Christ in Michelangelo’s famous fresco The Last Judgment.1 There are two main parts of the fresco, the center and the periphery. In the center, we see the figure of Christ. On the periphery, we see the context in which the central figure appears. The two dimensions belong together and the latter describes, as it were, in more details what the former expresses by itself. There are further divisions recognizable on the painting:  above and below, right and left. The upper side of the fresco is filled with figures expressing various forms of blessedness. The two upper parts under the two arches show the means of salvation, the cross and a column (referring to the column to which Jesus was bound and tortured in the gospels). On the right side (seen from the perspective of the figures on the fresco), the scenes of salvation come to the fore: resurrection, purification, and a number of saints already tasting heavenly blessedness. On the left side we see blessed figures in the upper part, struggling figures in the middle, and figures being banished to eternal damnation in the parts below. In the center of the lower part there is a group of angels blowing the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Left from this group a conspicuous person is visible that covers half of his face that expresses the tortures of conscience. His desperate look reveals that it is not decided yet whether he will fall into the inferno or be elevated into the higher region of the blessed. On the same level on the other side resurrected persons are drawn on high: their fate is already decided, yet the way is still long till they arrive at the eternally peaceful regions of the heavens. The most important feature of the fresco is its overwhelming dynamics which so strongly impresses the observer. While the hierarchical differences can be perceived between the blessed, the resurrected, the elevated, and the damned ones, all regions flow into each other and display a common whole. Various figures represent various ages of known history and thereby the fresco shows not only the Last Judgment of souls but also the judgment of the entire history of mankind as seen 1 Located in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican Museums, Vatican City, Italy.

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from the biblical perspective. The dynamic patterns are expressed in the gestures of the figures, their poses, positions, and relations to one another. As it has been established more than once, the fresco’s revolutionary character can be seen in all its aspects: its complex perspective, its colors, the figures and their relations, and the arrangement of the main parts of the painting.2 In the center of the fresco we see the magnificent figure of Christ in the circle of blessed apostles and prophets. At his right side, the Virgin Mother sits with a gesture that expresses humbleness, purity, and dedication. Most of the figures around Christ observe Christ himself, while the Virgin, however, looks down to the resurrected ones that still face the difficult task of purification and elevation. The figure of Christ, his head and upper body, is encompassed by a gloriole. His legs are pierced, the wounds visible. Christ is a young man, about twenty-five years old. His body, just as the bodies of most of the figures, is unusually muscular and almost entirely naked. The proportion between his body and the head is unusual. The size of his trunk, arms, and legs are emphasized. His look is directed to his saints on his left side, but perhaps at the same time to the figures entering or hardly escaping damnation below. The dynamism of the figure of Christ is perspicuous: he seems to be stepping ahead briskly. His left arm and hand are held in front of his chest and his right hand is lifted to his head. The two hands express a motion of decision, a closing and an opening. On his both hands, the fingers are arranged similarly: the inner fingers are held together, the little finger and the index finger are held separately, both hands expressing the gesture of blessing. From this we may perceive that there is no “damnation” in the proper sense in Christ’s judgment. Both his hands express blessing, yet one has the consequence of salvation, the other, damnation. His face does not look at the spectators of the fresco: he is entirely immersed in the realization of his eternal judgment. The ambiguity, which is often attributed to his bodily posture and facial expression, is better seen as the complexity of intellectual and emotional attitudes. Yet they are unified in the magnificent and dynamic unity of the figure. Christ’s bodily posture is similar to that of a musical conductor. He appears here more like a figure of an artist than that of a judge; he seems to be creating, producing, or conducting the universal music of everything. His figure obviously refers to the “new creation” mentioned in the last chapter of the Book of Revelation. He creates everything anew and seems to be wholly occupied with his creation. The result of this work is mirrored in the entire fresco: damnation and salvation, resurrection and destruction, wakening consciousness and angelic trumpets, the work of the cross above and the work of the devils below: all these express the inner work of the central figure. The circumstances disclose a work in progress. The figures are expressions of the same inner core of the fresco. The Last Judgment as 2 See Charles De Tolnay, Michelangelo:  The Final Period (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1960); The Sistine Chapel, ed. Massimo Giacometi (New York: Harmony Books, 1986); Leo Steinberg, “Michelangelo’s Last Judgement as Merciful Heresy,” Art in America 63 (November/December 1975), 49–60.

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a work of art displays this inner core in so many figures and movements. All are disclosures of the central figure in a certain way, and the central figure is revealing his ultimate decision about rearranging in an artistic way, the entire universe. It is natural that such a great work of art cannot be sufficiently characterized in a few lines. What I would emphasize especially is the unique figure of Christ, the drama of his gestures and the complexity of his bodily movements. When I consider this figure as an example of apocalyptic personhood, I mean first of all his personal features. The iconography of his face is different from all previous traditions. He does not look like the Christ of the Byzantine or Renaissance traditions, although his hair is arranged in the way which recalls the art of certain icons. Yet his youthful face is far from the Jesus-face of most Renaissance painters, not to mention the traditions of icon-painting. His face is far from any schematic pattern and is deeply personal. The expression of the face does not show anger or rigor. What is shown is rather unassertiveness and modesty, just as the countenance of his mother shows humbleness and docility. Christ’s restrained look is paradoxically counterbalanced by his massive body. There is a certain tension between the face and the body, because the muscular body of Christ is overwhelming, while his face is rather gentle. The dynamism of Christ’s body is not overemphasized: the position of two arms produces a certain physical balance. Thus, the entire appearance of Christ discloses rather a synthesis of the opposing forces of disposal and renewal, while the synthesis itself is shown as the creation of a new reality. Finally, it must be emphasized that there is nothing mysterious about the figure of Christ: his gestures are expressive, his movement is energetic, and there is no hidden dimension in his gestures and movements. Christ shows himself in his full humanity and divinity, in his transparent decision concerning salvation and damnation, in his entire creative activity. The honesty, simplicity, and seriousness of his countenance can be seen as the features of what I call apocalyptic personhood: there is no pretension, no sign of revenge, no anger, or any strong emotion on his face or in his gestures. Everything is reserved, balanced, and sincere. The different gestures of Christ’s right and left hands offer an opening and a reference: they do not express anything like an unchangeable decision but rather different forms of possibility. The right hand’s open palm offers the sign of revelation. The gesture of the arm is a reference to a decision in the process of being formed. This decision, however, may be just as well a decision to save human persons as the decision to let some other persons fall into damnation. At the same time, the elevated position of the right arm and its hand expresses the intense activity of judgment. Christ’s left arm is half-covered by the blue “linen cloths” of resurrection. Its gesture expresses a message different from that of the right hand. The right hand shows openness, like the openness of space; the left hand reveals a process, like the process of time. The two belong together as if Michelangelo had already surmised later philosophical positions, and yet they differ in their orientation and character. The fingers of the left hand point to something beyond the immediately given, that is, the full realization of the process of judgment. As opposed to the openness of the right palm, which underlines the presence of divine will, the left hand appears as a pointer to the fulfillment of Christ’s activity.

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The different gestures of Christ’s right and left hands express the complexity of the person in the center of revelation. They reveal indeed the dynamic structures of apocalyptic personhood. The nakedness of Christ’s body is the most visible expression of the moral, emotional, and intellectual transparency, the clarity of revelation: indeed, “[n]othing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.” This text from Luke, which I  have used as the central expression of apocalyptic personhood, may have inspired the artist as well. Michelangelo’s artwork is an ideal expression of apocalyptic personhood, because it describes it in its highest form possible in the framework of Christianity. It describes this personhood in itself and in its activity:  in itself by his facial expression, bodily positions and movements, his nakedness, and in its activity represented by the newly formed universe with complex scenes of salvation and damnation. The intention of the painter, as it is obvious already from the psychology of art, is not simply an historical representation of dogmatic contents. It is much more the work of imagination based on the potentialities of Christian teachings and their inspiration for the artist. The two factors cooperate to disclose the unified vision of personhood in its ultimate realization. I find it especially important that Michelangelo breaks with most traditional iconography in order to create a new type of person in his representation of Christ. This clearly shows not only the genius of the painter but also the elementary influence of the figure of Jesus in Christianity, a figure deeply determining the history of human personhood. It is part and parcel of this history that Michelangelo was able to develop a new understanding of personhood in Christ, an understanding profoundly influential not only in the subsequent history of the arts but also in the history of human personhood. The central feature of renewal, expressed in the bodily motion, facial expression, and also by the age of Christ on the fresco, points to the birth of a fuller realization of human personhood. During the centuries thereafter, this unique figure became the example of human self-understanding in terms of an ultimate ideal. The radical newness of this figure must be approached from one more angle: the synthetic nature of apocalyptic personhood. Radical personhood is entailed in apocalyptic personhood in a way that the latter overcomes the former and integrates it into itself. The figure of Christ carries only two references to radical personhood:  the stigmas on his feet, and the light robe around his body referring most importantly to “the linen cloths” of the dead and resurrected Jesus (cf. Jn 20:5). Other parts of the fresco have a number of further references, such as the parts under the arches showing the cross and the column. Yet the figure itself offers a complete integration of all the traces of radical personhood into the main features of apocalyptic personhood. This characteristic may not do full justice to the real relationship between the two dimensions, because radical personhood is to be seen as an organic yet never completely dissolved dimension of apocalyptic personhood. In other artistic representations of the Last Judgment (such as those of Jan van Eyck, El Greco, or Francisco Pacheco, to name only a few), Christ is represented in the characteristic red robe of the martyrs and thereby the organic connection between his role as the judge and his suffering on the cross is emphasized.

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In Michelangelo’s fresco, the apocalyptic dimension is stressed, while the features of suffering are suppressed. What we gain is the unparalleled emphasis on newness, which is indeed the central mark of apocalyptic personhood. We should not forget, nevertheless, that artistic representations never fully express but only approximately demonstrate underlying ideas that are present in the historical process. It is not only Michelangelo that painted the Last Judgment scene with Christ in the center, and not only artists who worked on the proper understanding and realization of what it means to develop a new perception of Christ. Literature, mysticism, theology, and philosophy all partook in the process of understanding personhood as the expression of revelation; more precisely they partook in the process of understanding apocalyptic personhood as the center of the Christian message. This process is indeed historical, and while it has validity in every age, it would be a mistake not to see the overarching process of understanding and realization that permeates our heritage. It is the heritage of revelation and especially self-revelation that needs to be perceived and expressed in a given age with the given means available and in accordance with the insight one may have of its importance.3

3. Aspects of Apocalyptic Personhood Michelangelo’s artwork serves as a powerful introduction to the notion of apocalyptic personhood. This personhood profoundly permeates the entire tradition of Christianity from its beginnings to our present time. It is not merely personhood that stands in the center of this tradition, but above all personhood in the full sense of radical revelation, that is, apocalyptic personhood. Its roots reach back to the apocalyptic literature before the birth of Christianity into various strata of Hellenism. The most concrete developments took place in Judaism, but there were

3 In a different way and in a different context, Martin Luther’s Concerning Christian Liberty of 1520 expresses the ultimate freedom of the Christian in a way which may be compared to the freedom represented by Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. What Luther writes on the Christians—“A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one”—can be translated into the iconography of the risen Lord of the fresco. The latter expresses ultimate freedom yet compassion as well, and a radical reinterpretation of earlier artistic traditions, just as it was done two decades earlier by Luther in his writing I quoted. See http://legacy. fordham.edu/halsall/mod/luther-freedomchristian.asp (accessed February 15, 2015). The fundamental difference between the two expressions can be identified in their respective forms: Luther’s is a theological treatise; Michelangelo’s is a work of art. The theological treatise expresses an ideal in the language of concepts, and the work of art expresses an ideal by means of artistic representation. Nevertheless, both works point to a similar direction: the direction of the ultimate freedom expressed in Christianity. Both works determined the subsequent centuries in more than one way far beyond the limits of their respective genres.

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parallel developments in philosophy as well, especially in Platonism and Stoicism with their characteristic teachings on the cyclical destruction of the world and the emphasis on the rebirth of the ages in accordance with a cosmological rhythm.4 However, the personal focus of destruction and rebirth was developed with an unparalleled sharpness in Judaism and Christianity, and it was the latter that organized this understanding into the overall doctrine of “the last things” and especially the Last Judgment. Whatever the concrete sources of the figure of Jesus may have been, this figure is presented to us in the New Testament as apocalyptic. The teaching of “the kingdom of the heavens” or “the Kingdom of God” testifies this in the most direct sense. And the rest of the New Testament writings, the letters and especially the Book of Revelation, developed the idea of apocalyptic personhood in a way which is both complex and yet, to a certain extent, well structured. It is not merely the teaching that plays here the central role. Beyond the doctrine, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are presented to us as a kaleidoscope of apocalyptic personhood, which still lacks a seamlessly unified picture. It is therefore important to think through the various aspects of this personhood, and it is equally important to map out some of the most important developments of this understanding and realization of personhood with a special emphasis on the subsequent centuries of Christianity. Thus, as I did it before with respect to radical personhood, I use here aspects of apocalyptic personhood as expressed especially in the biblical texts to highlight not only the various dimensions of apocalyptic personhood, but also its overarching unity. a. The Kingdom of God The terms “the Kingdom of God,” “the kingdom of heaven,” and in one case “the kingdom of Christ” are key expressions of the New Testament and describe the central message of Jesus. The origin of the expression points back to the Old Testament, especially to Dan. 7:13–14.5 What I  want to clarify here is not the intricate problem of the history of the terms, but rather the relationship between personhood and the notion of the Kingdom of God as is given to us in the New Testament. While in Dan. 7:14 the kingdom (“dominion and glory and kingdom”) is the kingdom of the Son of Man, the personal content of the Kingdom of God in Jesus’s sayings is not immediately obvious. The Kingdom of God is “at hand,” 4 See especially Plato’s so-called eschatological myths in the Phaedo, the Republic, and the Gorgias. Cf. Kathryn Morgan, Myth and Philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to Plato (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2004), p.  179:  “The eschatological myths of Gorgias, Phaedo, and Republic show myth as the culmination of the philosophical project of the dialogue.” 5 “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (Dan. 7:13–14).

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yet it is not directly personal. It is rather a “secret” (Mk 4:11 or “secrets,” Lk. 8:10), its effect is that devils are expelled and the sick are healed. However, the Kingdom of God is open to the elect, or even to “the tax collectors and the harlots,” it is of little children, awaited by many, attributed to the blessed of various kinds. The Kingdom of God is often “compared” to a grain of mustard seed, leaven, a certain nobleman who went into a far country, a man preparing a banquet, the good shepherd, a woman who lost a coin, or a father who hails the return of his prodigal son. Often it is called “the kingdom of heaven” and similarly likened to “a man who sowed good seed in his field,” or “a treasure hidden in a field,” or a merchant, a householder, a certain king, the ten maidens, and so on. There are thus strong personal connotations of the notion of the Kingdom of God, and yet the personal element is expressed rather in special kinds of personal action. What cannot be clearly established is the common element in the various parables and sayings. If the Kingdom of God is just like a king preparing a marriage or it is like ten maidens waiting for the bridegroom, there is certainly a symbolical connection. Yet the Kingdom of God as a lost coin or the healing of the sick is more difficult to connect to one another. It is, however, still the varied personal content that comes to the fore in the first place. Merchants and kings, maidens and fathers, treasure and mustard seed all refer to a variety of human experience in which something surprising, something unlikely is to take place. Harlots and tax collectors can enter the kingdom, devils are scattered by it, little children belong to it, and it helps someone find what is lost. In other words, the Kingdom of God is represented as a course of action that abolishes natural expectations and introduces an unlikely turn of events. In the Lord’s Prayer, the petition for the coming of “thy kingdom” is not yet about the present; prayer is needed for its coming. Yet it is present in “the heaven,” where the Father dwells. The Father dwells “in heaven” (often in the plural, ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς) where his will is done. On earth, his will is not done and prayer is needed to realize the heavenly will. The will is fulfilled in that we receive our bread, we forgive our debtors, and we are freed from evil. In other words, the Kingdom of God consists in the earth’s reproducing the heaven by implementing the divine will, receiving bread, practicing forgiveness, and being freed from temptation and evil. By taking the Lord’s Prayer as a common basis, the various personal contents of the parables may become better defined. The kingdom is about human action under the guidance of the divine and it results in becoming freed from temptation and evil. The direct revelational content in this understanding of personhood is the presence of God’s will. God’s will is seen as the disclosure of his freedom, thus its presence is the fact of freedom expressed in the Kingdom of God. This presence, nevertheless, takes a number of forms highlighted by the parables. God’s freedom is present in “tax collectors and harlots” inasmuch as they freely repent. It is present in the mustard seed inasmuch as it grows up to “the largest tree” on earth. It is present in the virgins inasmuch as they have the sufficient amount of lamp oil. It is also present in the love of the father that forgives and receives back his prodigal son. The apocalyptic feature in these events is not given in their everydayness but rather in their power of representation to show God’s freedom. It is the most

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natural occurrences, occurrences of a surprising turn, that display the presence of God’s freedom. This freedom is the central apocalyptic feature of the notion of the Kingdom of God, which is “at hand.” It is the freedom of God that realizes a positive accomplishment, it is the same freedom that develops the natural course of action into a final turn of fulfillment, and it is God’s freedom that generates the freedom of repentance, honesty, and forgiveness in human persons. Apocalyptic personhood is the ultimate expression of self-revelation, the revelation of revelation, in which the divine expresses itself in a personal focus. In the ad intra dimension of revelation, apocalyptic personhood describes the way in which revelation as the central activity of the divine, that is to say, as radical revelation, is realized. It is realized in the fact of freedom, as I described it above, and it is realized in the freedom itself, by which “the Kingdom of God” becomes present and “the will of God” is implemented. There is indeed an ad intra meaning of repentance which makes it possible that the Kingdom of God is properly expressed in the life of human persons. This meaning can be grasped in the effect of “the Kingdom of God” as the abolition of evil and temptation; as the ad intra energy leading to the freedom from evil. It is in this freedom that apocalyptic personhood realizes its substantive transparence, and it is in this freedom that the fact of freedom of radical revelation is realized, and it is in this freedom that the ad intra and ad extra meanings of revelation are fused without losing either their distinctions or unity. By describing the various aspects of apocalyptic personhood, we may understand better not only its Trinitarian or economic importance but also its constitutive power with respect to human persons and, in particular, our own human person. Either radical or apocalyptic, personhood is that which has constituted our personhood in all the complicated ways culture is able to form human beings. We as persons living today belong to the historical development of personhood, especially apocalyptic personhood, and more importantly we belong to the ad intra reality of persons. Even if one needs to emphasize that this latter relation is nonproportional—because “creation” can never be proportional to the “creator”— we also need to realize that there is an intricate togetherness in this relation inasmuch as personhood could not have evolved without its ad intra dimension in the first place. And beyond the historical level, there is the factual level of persons being constituted by Trinitarian revelation in appropriate ways. These ways can be analyzed by describing the fundamental aspects of apocalyptic personhood in their original, biblical context with respect to the philosophico-theological interpretations I am offering in this work. b. The Son of Man The notion of the Kingdom of God cannot be separated from the notion of the Son of Man. The figure of the Son of Man displays again an important aspect of apocalyptic personhood.6 While the expression is used most often as a title, its 6 It is not my task here to describe the origins of the expression; it is only its meaning in the New Testament that I consider relevant in the description of apocalyptic personhood,

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mysterious character, the consistent use of it in the third-person singular by Jesus, has made the expression and its content the subject matter of religious life, emotion, and speculation, a subject clearly contributing to the emergence of the notion of personhood. The unique energy inherent in this expression issues from its inner tensions. Scholarship may argue about the various historical sources of the title and the layers of its meaning. Yet such a critical examination cannot explain the overall effect of this expression on the reader and listener of the New Testament texts. It is not merely the complexity of the meaning which appears to be important, but also its special relationship to Jesus. It is indeed this latter component which makes the expression “the Son of Man” so uniquely resourceful. It is not by accident that the author of the Gospel of John makes the mysterious character of “the Son of Man” explicit in the form of a question raised by “the people”: “Who is this Son of Man?” (Jn 12:34). It is part and parcel of the preaching tactics of Jesus that he rarely gives clear-cut answers. Even when he does not speak in parables, the sayings are often complex, sometimes abridged, and puzzling. The lack of unambiguous answers is not the sign of uncertainty or editorial confusion, but it is rather a pedagogical tool by which the receiver of the New Testament texts may work out his or her answers to the most disturbing questions. This subjective effort on the part of the reader or listener is incorporated in the composition of the New Testament texts as an important factor. The use of the title of “the Son of Man” is of the same kind: its inner tensions, complexity, and enigmatic character are not the result of editorial inconsistency, negligence, or the lack of a sufficient integration of the sources, but rather an intentional editorial methodology which most probably had its sources in the intricacy of the original sayings. There are four distinctive forms of the Son of Man sayings that “portray Jesus as the earthly, suffering, exalted, and coming Son of Man.”7 As an example for the first, see Mt. 8:20: “And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.’ ” As to the second, see Mk 14:21: “For the Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!” The Son of Man, however, is at the same time exalted already here on earth: “For the Son of man is lord of the Sabbath” (Mt. 12:8). He will come in the future as well: “For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done” (Mt. 16:27). The Book of Revelation uses the expression of the Son of Man with a clear reference to Dan. 7:13. In the gospels, the four layers can be distinguished, yet they always refer to the same person. The third-person use of the “the Son of Man” stands in a tension with the “I am” sayings especially in the Gospel because we do not possess a similarly overarching and detailed use of this expression beyond the New Testament. As to the “Son of Man problem,” cf. Christopher Tuckett, “Jesus in Q,” in Delbert Burkett (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Jesus (London: Blackwell, 2011), p. 89: “The problems surrounding the use of the term ‘Son of Man’ in the gospels are enormous, and it is probably fair to say that ‘the Son of Man problem’ is one of the most intractable in all aspects of gospel studies today.” See also Burkett, The Son of Man Debate. 7 Burkett, The Son of Man Debate, p. 122.

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of John. But this tension is again an integral part of the overall self-understanding of Jesus, an understanding which entails not only the direct self-reference but also the third-person reference. This does not mean that “the Son of Man” formula could be reduced to the simple pronoun of “I,” because in this case an important dimension of Jesus self-awareness would be lost, namely, the emphasis on his mysterious identity which embraces various persons he kept referring to. The complexity of these sayings, their consistent use in the third-person singular, and their self-referential content all contribute to the intricate personality of Jesus in the New Testament, a personality so decisive in the emergence of what I term “apocalyptic personhood.” What is especially important with respect to the latter is the overlapping character of the various meanings of the Son of Man sayings. The consistent editorial intention may be verified by the Greek use of the term with the definite article (ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου). Whatever the original Hebrew or Aramaic form of this expression may have been, the definite article shows a grammatical consistency which refers again to a certain level of awareness of the fluctuating meanings of the term itself. If, however, we have this complex meaning of the term in the New Testament, it may not be far from the truth to say that, at least on the level of redaction, this complexity was intentionally maintained. Viewed in this way, “the Son of Man” is a whole with various layers of meaning which are integrated to some extent. Most importantly, the exalted Christ and the suffering Jesus are defined with respect to one another. That is clearly expressed in John’s play of the words “uplifting” (ὑψόω): “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up” (Jn 3:14). The reference is complex, because it involves an allegorical interpretation of a story in the Old Testament and its application both to the lifting up on the cross and the ultimate exaltation of Jesus. Recall that in Phil 2:9–11 Jesus is “highly exalted” (ὑπερύψωσεν) by God. John grasps the three aspects in one central notion, that of “uplifting,” which symbolically connects suffering and glorification through the human Jesus as the announcer of his fate. At the same time, it suggests also that there is a secret layer of meaning in the Old Testament which is clarified only in the perspective of the paradoxical uplifting of “the Son of Man.” It is this complex and integrated nature of the Son of Man that is especially important in the notion of apocalyptic personhood. Its apocalyptic nature is realized in the various meanings integrated in an enigmatic whole, and it is at the same time a personhood that is apocalyptically revealed with all its tensions and unity. This notion of personhood became influential in Christianity from the beginnings, and it has determined later developments as well. It is not merely the literarily “apocalyptic” features of the Son of Man that is decisive in this development, although this layer is certainly fundamental. The unified complexity of all the other meanings of the term has also contributed to the overall influence of the notion. In the Trinitarian perspective, the “Son of Man” as Christ is the second person of the Trinity, and in this way it has a determining function in the entire Trinitarian notion of personhood ad intra. Radical revelation is about conceiving this decisive function both in its ad intra and ad extra dimensions.

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c. Resurrection Perhaps no other texts of the gospels express the fundamental importance of apocalyptic personhood as emphatically as the ones describing the event of resurrection. While the relevant texts in the gospels are composed with an awareness of possible doubts, as I mentioned above, it is at the same time the fact of resurrection that stands at the center of these descriptions. This fact is described in two important ways: first, by way of portraying the empty tomb of the corpse; second, by the descriptions of the appearance of the risen Christ to the disciples. The descriptions themselves raise several questions, but the fundamental one may be this:  given the intention of the authors and editors of the gospels to demonstrate Jesus’s divine mission through the accounts of his teaching, death, and resurrection, what motivation did they have to offer narratives with delicate and often contradictory details about the empty tomb, the women seeking the body, and Jesus’s appearances under different circumstances and to different people? Given again the considerable editorial work put into the composition of the gospel texts, one would surmise that a simple account of the resurrection and a unified description of the appearance of the risen Christ to the disciples would have satisfied the original intention of the authors. The natural answer to this difficulty may point to the existence of multiple traditions which the authors and editors preserved. However, even in this case the problem remains, as noted, that the authors and editors of the gospel texts show some hesitation to use the unambiguous tradition of the fact of resurrection as their clear guideline. It is equally important that the very first message about the resurrection is not given by the risen Christ himself, but by an angel (or two angels). The indirect way of proclaiming such a fundamental message reveals again a problematic core in the traditional material. The appearances of Christ to the women, the disciples of Emmaus, and Mary Magdalene raise the question about the authors’ intention. These appearances were, according to the descriptions, ambiguous and limited to a few people. However, the subsequent appearances of Christ to a number of disciples for a long period of time can be seen as the confirmation of the fact of resurrection. Yet even in these cases the possibility is mentioned that the risen Christ was a “ghost” (spirit, πνεῦμα, Lk. 24:37) or his resurrection was “doubted” (they hesitated, ἐδίστασαν, Mt. 28:17). It seems that the authors and editors of the texts intended to keep the descriptions open to possible interpretations and explanations and invite the readers and listener to cooperate in the understanding of the message of resurrection. It seems again that the enigmatic character of the texts could be maintained precisely by the slightly contradictory and vague descriptions of the event of resurrection. For indeed the various scenes, in which mourning women were searching the corpse of the deceased divine person, could recall reminiscences of religious traditions with a focus on the death and resurrection of pre-Christian deities. Similarly, the dramatic effect of the resurrection scenes of the gospels could not have been reached if not by using the appropriate tools to raise the emotions of fear, hope, and mystery in the receiver of these descriptions. While it is generally agreed that the resurrection accounts are theological in character, which cannot be analyzed

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in a narrowly historical sense, it may be added that they are equally dramatic texts with the concrete goal of the authors and editors to generate an emotional state in the reader or listener of the texts close to the classical experience of catharsis.8 As opposed to the complicated and dramatically designed character of the gospel texts, the theological summary given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 confirms the existence of an unambiguous tradition of the fact of resurrection. The chapter itself consists of several parts, such as the description of the resurrection and appearance of the risen Christ, the theological importance of resurrection, an eschatology concerning the resurrection of the dead, especially those who died in Christ, and also a summary of natural analogies on the basis of which the reader may conceive the fact of resurrection as far as possible. The description of resurrection is a testimony against those that doubt it, and Paul lists the witnesses that testify the resurrection, including himself as “one untimely born,” to whom Christ appeared last (1 Cor. 15:8). If Christ is not risen, Paul’s preaching is futile and the Corinthians are still in their sins (1 Cor. 15:17–18). That is to say, if there is no absolute renewal of reality, the self-destructive forces still prevail. The eschatological part culminates in a section close to the notion of apokatastasis or restoration of all things in God, when “all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one” (1 Cor. 15:28).9 This notion shows the overall theological perspective of the resurrection: the resurrection of Christ is the realization of the remission of sins and the future resurrection of human persons. This resurrection takes place eschatologically when Christ judges all human beings and destroys death. Finally, Christ himself will be subject to God and God will be all in all. Paul uses natural analogies to highlight the fact of resurrection. First he introduces the age-old analogy of the decaying and germinating seed as an empirical reference to the decaying human body which is then to produce something analogous to the germ, a spiritual body. In Paul’s view, human beings do not naturally produce their spiritual bodies, but God gives such bodies to them in resurrection. Second, as a description of the nature of spiritual bodies, Paul refers to the bodies of the stars and the planets, presupposing that they are spiritual beings. “So is it with the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:42), that is to say, also the dead will receive a spiritual body similar to the “glory” (δόξα, splendor) of the stellar entities. This cosmological vision is complemented by a theology of history, according to which the first man, Adam, was of the earth, but “the second man is

8 For a most detailed analysis of the sources and interpretations of the resurrection, see Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God. 9 The Vulgate says: “ut sit Deus omnia in omnibus,” which is perfectly well given in the traditional English translation: “that God may be all in all.” The interpretation of RSVCE as to this clause of the above verse is indeed unique and goes beyond the Greek original (ἵνα ᾖ ὁ θεὸς τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν).

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from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47). The old and sinful life is that of Adam, the new and spiritual life, which leads to glorious bodies, is the life of Christ.10 Christianity accepted the fact of resurrection as the core of its dogmatic teaching. This fact so profoundly permeated the life, emotions, and mind of the Christians that the denial of resurrection, in accordance with Paul’s words, would have been identical with the rejection of Christianity. This central fact has been expressed in theological speculations, mysticism, and the representative arts as well. However, it is one of the most intriguing developments of the artistic representation of resurrection that it only gradually evolved and reached its full-fledged iconography by the time of the Renaissance. Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece with the painting of the Risen Lord is one of the highest points of this development. The Risen Lord floats, as it were, above the grave and the sleeping soldiers, demonstrating thereby a higher, spiritual existence. The sum effect of the painting is reinforced by the enormous gloriole which surrounds the figure of Christ. After the Council of Trent, the representations of the Risen Christ returned to a more realistic conception where Christ is normally shown to remain on the earth with his feet.11 Yet, for instance, Rubens’s painting of 1611 substitutes the spirituality of earlier works of art by an unparalleled dynamism of the figures and their positions.12 And El Greco’s painting from around 1600 shows a Christ levitating above the grave and the group of disciples and soldiers.13 The boldness of the painting is expressed in the gestures of surprise, fear, and shock on the part of the witnesses, while Christ himself radiates a naturally mild atmosphere. His right hand unambiguously communicates the message of resurrection: “What I told you before you

10 According to Wright, Paul “is not buying in to the cosmology of the Timaeus; indeed, the way the entire chapter is built around Genesis 1 and 2 indicates that he is consciously choosing to construct a cosmology, and within that a future hope, from the most central of Jewish sources” (Resurrection of the Son of God, p. 346). The cosmology of the Timaeus may not have been a pattern for Paul, yet the general cosmo-theological view of the universe was natural for anyone living in the Hellenistic period. The analogy of the stars parallels the analogy of the seed. The two analogies have a common structure and a common point: just as the seed produces the corn, and just as the stars have their splendor, also human beings are to receive their spiritual bodies from God after their bodies are decayed in the soil. These are merely analogies and the furthest Paul goes is an edifying similarity between the spiritual bodies of the resurrected and the stellar entities. 11 See especially Session XXV of the Council of Trent:  “The holy council earnestly desires to root out utterly any abuses that may have crept into these holy and saving practices, so that no representations of false doctrine should be set up that give occasion of dangerous error to the unlettered” (Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum et Declarationum (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012), §1835). 12 The Resurrection of Christ (1611–12) is a triptych painting by Peter Paul Rubens, now in the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp. 13 El Greco’s The Resurrection of Christ (completed around 1600)  is located in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

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can see now.” The main structure of this extraordinary painting is defined by the dualism of the Risen Christ and the fallen dark figure of Satan, with the one representing the victory of the spirit, and the other the defeat of unspiritual matter.14 In contemporary art, Pericle Fazzini’s sculpture La Resurrezione (exhibited in the Paul VI Audience Hall in Rome) is one of the most intriguing attempts to interpret the fact of resurrection by artistic means. The sculpture is a synthesis of the development of natural energies (in the analogy of the growing corn) that dominate the main structures, and higher, spiritual kind of energies infusing the entire build-up of the sculpture. Both the levitating and flame-like figure of Christ and the upper pieces of the blazing surroundings refer to the presence of a higher principle, that is, the supernatural power of resurrection. Christ’s right hand palm is open to the sky, his left hand pam is opened to the earth, his face is turned to the earth as a gesture of mercy. His entire figure is floating in a whirlwind which refers to the power of the Holy Spirit expressed by the double symbolism of a burning fire and the growing leaves of plant-like forms. This representation counts as a modern artistic synthesis of the overall effects of the fact of resurrection in a way which is apt to influence the self-identity of contemporary humanity. Many of these representations, like the fresco of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, have been burned into the soul of Christianity as the ideal approximations of the fact of resurrection. They express a notion which has been operative in Christianity in the most important sense. This notion of resurrection has formed the entire personality of individuals and communities, their mental horizon and intellectual orientation throughout the centuries, and determined the realm of the reality of personhood as well. In the perspective of radical revelation, the original notion of the resurrection and its later developments mirrored in artistic representations have definitely contributed to the more profound understanding of personhood in the Trinitarian sense. At the same time, it contributed to a more characteristic understanding of personhood in the human sense as well. The two processes of understanding have developed in a synergy mutually determining the understanding of both the ad intra and the ad extra dimensions of revelation. While the doctrine of resurrection is an original teaching reaching back to the sources of Christianity, without its gradually ever more profound understanding the reality of personhood could not have been properly conceived. Apocalyptic personhood as the expression of the fact of freedom of radical revelation received its force from the core fact of resurrection and its interpretations during the Christian centuries. d. Pentecost We need to understand the event of Pentecost because of its communitarian importance. Apocalyptic personhood has been so far and above all considered

14 After the Baroque period, influential paintings of resurrection became sporadic; by the nineteenth century, accepted representational schemas prevailed.

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in terms of the individual persons. However, as Michelangelo’s Last Judgment also demonstrates, apocalyptic personhood is not only an individual affair but, at the same time, it is about a community. Resurrection narratives focus on the individual Christ. Even his own disciples are initially shocked and doubtful, and represented as an unorganized group of witnesses. As the appearances continue, the community is slowly formed around the Risen Lord, and there are artistic representations which emphasize this phase of development. Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of St. Thomas or Rembrandt’s The Supper at Emmaus are paintings that show the birth of a community as a consequence of the appearance of Christ.15 These and similar works of art show in the mirror of imagined biblical scenes how revelation as self-revelation is not merely about the apocalyptic personhood that stands in the center, but also about the overwhelming effect of such revelation on the formation of a community. In other words, the revelation of apocalyptic personhood is at the same time the revelation of a community of persons participating in the radiation of apocalyptic personhood. If we consider this point in the ad intra perspective of revelation, the revelation of apocalyptic personhood is at the same time the revelation of the community of apocalyptic persons: through the central revelation of personhood the community of persons is also disclosed. In the Trinitarian sense, it is the revelation of the Son of God that reveals the community of the Trinitarian persons. It is through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ that the Trinity is disclosed, and this gives the ultimate force of the doctrine of the Filioque: the disclosure of the divine as Trinity is realized not only through the Father, but filioque, that is, “through the Son as well.” Revelation as direct self-revelation culminates in the revelation of apocalyptic personhood in such a way that the apocalyptic personhood of other persons is also manifested. In the ad extra dimension, the various scenes of the life of Jesus are apt to show the same kind of structure. On the one hand, the apocalyptic personhood of Christ discloses the personal relations of the Trinity in the historical sense, and, in an analogous way, the disclosure of apocalyptic personhood is instrumental in creating a community among the receivers of revelation. The birth of such a community can be variously described on the basis of some biblical stories. Yet such a development goes beyond the realm of the biblical narrative and assumes a broader historical importance. Not only the birth of the Church at Pentecost can be used as a description of the development of community, but a number of parallel occurrences in the history of Christianity or even in the history of humanity in general as well. Since my focus has been and will remain the context of Christianity, I do not investigate the development of communities outside this realm. It may be sufficient to say that, in our framework, the revelation of apocalyptic personhood has been the efficient cause, latent or overt, of the naissance of important communities in our millennial culture. The biblical description of the Pentecost event has served in various ways as

15 Caravaggio’s painting was completed in 1602 and can be found in the Sanssouci collection in Potsdam, Germany. Rembrandt’s painting was accomplished in 1648 and is located in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, France.

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the historical prototype of such developments either in the Church itself or in small artistic, cultural, or social communities of more or less limited influence and significance. Western humanity has interpreted its community-creating activities on a number of levels in the perspective of the original act of creation, that is, in the more or less visible perspective of Pentecost. I emphasize that not only Church organizations, such as monastic orders, spiritual or theological schools have interpreted themselves in such a perspective, but also cultural, especially artistic communities, and sometimes even political developments as well. The “Pentecostal” movements may be understood strictly in terms of neo-Protestant spiritual forms, and we have witnessed artistic movements and developments which also considered themselves by means of this archetypal formation. Even today we see the tendency of cultural groupings or utopian movements to interpret themselves in terms of the original Pentecostal vocabulary. I consider these developments, however insignificant many of them may be, as the verification of the historical efficacy of an original founding story. Above all I consider them as expressions of the inner force of the fundamental fact that radical revelation as revelation of apocalyptic personhood is not only about an individual, but also about a community. That is to say, apocalyptic personhood is intersubjective. While it is about the central fact of revelation, intersubjectivity shapes its fundamental structures.16 The Acts of Apostles contains the description of the Pentecost; its central event is the outpouring of the Spirit on the community that was already present unianimiter, ὁμοθυμαδὸν, “with one mind,” “in one accord.” The apostles with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. (Acts 1:14)17

The expression “in one accord” means that the outpouring of the Spirit was in part a response to the community’s unified prayer as formed by the recurring appearances of Christ. Yet the community in its genuine form takes shape as a result of the Spirit. The outpouring of the Spirit is described as a theophany. Readers versed in the Tanakh could thereby recognize that the outpouring of the Spirit was a higher reiteration of the Sinai theophany. Just as the Lord on the Sinai gave the old law, the Spirit in Jerusalem gave the “new law” to the new community, namely, the law of the Spirit.18 The clearest indicator of this is the 16 It is a well-known fact that heretical or politically extreme movements have often interpreted themselves in Pentecostal terms. Yet these developments only confirm my thesis about the historical efficacy of the founding story. The misuse of good cannot be fully hampered if human beings possess freedom; which does not mean that extremist movements, or for that matter insignificant artistic groupings, could be seen as first-order examples. Yet even they express in their distorted way the underlying truth of the intersubjective character of apocalyptic personhood. 17 In some manuscripts, Acts 2:1 also contains the expression “with one accord.” 18 Charles T. Talbert, Reading the Acts: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc., 2000), p. 24.

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new language the apostles speak, a language which may have been both glossolaly and xenolaly, the speaking of inspired new language and a language which all representatives of various nations could understand.19 The phenomenon of the new language is thus the sign of the birth of the new community. And the sarcastic note of some who witnessed the apostle’s behavior—“They are filled with new wine” (Acts 2:13)—can be understood as a confirmation of the fact that here indeed “new wine” was given to a new community.20 The “fresh wineskins” in Lk. 5:38 refer not merely to the apostles, but rather to the community formed around them as a consequence of Peter’s speech. The speech focuses on the fulfillment of Tanakh prophecies, especially those of Joel. However, it invites to baptism and this baptism with the Spirit is again the fulfillment of John the Baptist’s prophecy about the One who “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Lk. 3:16). The motive of the fire has a special importance in the birth of the community. As the text says, And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. (Acts 2:3)

The “tongues as of fire” are clearly related to the next verse, “and they began to speak with other tongues,” as the same word is used for the tongues of fire and the tongue spoken by the apostles. It does not seem satisfying to say that the phrase of “tongues as of fire” merely refers to the prophecy of John the Baptist in Lk. 3:16. The individual character of the tongues “as of fire” expresses the communication of the Spirit to each of the apostles so that they are born anew and have a new kind of personality—and profess their faith in “tongues,” that is, by tongues of fire and in tongues of men. In other words, apocalyptic personhood is communicated to them and they become incarnations of this personhood in an individual way. This personhood is given to them through the Spirit, yet by virtue of the death and resurrection of Jesus, as Peter explains it (Acts 2:24). It is through the resurrection of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit that the new community is formed in which a new personhood is communicated to the apostles and the apostles communicate the “tongues” of their new personality. The new community, with its new members, is called “the church” by the text (ἡ ἐκκλησία, Acts 2:47).21 This is an unambiguous reference to the fact that the new community considered itself as

19 As Stefan Weinstock has shown in “The Geographical Catalogue in Acts 2, 9–11,” Journal of Roman Studies 38 (1948), 43–6, the list of the nations in the Acts follows popular astrological catalogs of the time. 20 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins” (Lk. 5:37–38). 21 Instead of “church” or “assembly,” we find in RSVCE the expression “those who were being saved” as the translation of ἐκκλησία.

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the heir of Israel, its election and providential destiny; in other words, the Church appears as the new and universalized Israel.22 In the traditional iconography Pentecost is represented as the assembly of the apostles with the Virgin Mary sitting among them. The Η Πεντηκοστή type icons (“Descent of the Holy Spirit” or Pentecost) most often show the Virgin sitting in the center of the apostles when they all receive the Spirit. This representation goes back to the text of Acts which expressly says that [a]ll these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. (Acts 1:14)

One of the most interesting artistic representations of the descent of the Holy Spirit is the famous painting by El Greco.23 It is not only the characteristic style of the Cretan artist that makes this painting extraordinary, but also its triadic structure. The main figures on the painting are the Spirit, Mary, and St. Peter. The attitudes of Mary and Peter, expressed by their bodily posture, are symptomatically different: Mary receives the Spirit with the gesture of passive and silent prayer; Peter receives the Spirit with the wide gesture of ecstatic openness. The other figures on the painting display versions of apocalyptic openness and show a unique combination of gestures and postures. Their openness is rooted in the opening up of the sky above them and the descending of the Spirit shown in the traditional form of a white dove. At the same time, the complexity of gestures and attitudes form a community of a common structure in the light of the Spirit; indeed, under the egis of revelation. This revelation is creative, radical, permeating, determining; it generates new personalities, individual reactions, gestures, and bodily movements; it creates a plurality of new personalities that form a new community. The complex movement structure of the painting refers to the varied influences of the Spirit, the unified multiplicity of individuals each of them possessing “a tongue as of fire” as the sign of their individually realized apocalyptic personhood. While the figures are so different, the tongues of fire have a common shape and intensity, which is, again, a sign referring to the community created by the Spirit.

22 “An essential element in Luke’s theology is the universality of salvation, including both Jews and non-Jews as part of the one people of God. . . . However, Luke borrows images and vocabulary from the Septuagint to depict the Christian movement in ways that suggest continuity with Israel. For instance, in Peter’s Pentecost speech, the quotation from the prophet Joel offers an interpretation of the Pentecost phenomena as God’s fulfillment to Israel. In addition, the use of the term ekklesia (typically translated as ‘church’ in the New Testament) appropriated the concept of the assembly of Israel as God’s people already found in the Septuagint.” Richard P. Thompson, “Luke-Acts: The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles,” in David Aune (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament (Oxford: Blackwell), p. 322. 23 In the possession of the Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

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The theology of the iconography may be translated as: the traditional understanding conceived the Virgin Mary as the pivotal recipient of the Holy Spirit, that is to say, the paramount representative of the passive side of apocalyptic personhood. It belongs to the theology of Luke to emphasize the role of Mary in the work of salvation. This features returns in the Acts as well, which grounds the traditional teaching of the Holy Virgin as “the Mother of the Church.” What I find here important is the fact that apocalyptic personhood is conceived in this framework as consisting in an active and a passive component: the active is expressed by the Spirit, the passive by the Virgin. It is a crucially important point that apocalyptic personhood is not merely a one-sidedly active principle but naturally complemented by the potency of reception. Radical revelation is the revelation of revelation which takes place originally and essentially ad intra. However, it takes place ad extra as well, and it is in the latter relation that the explicit need for the receptive principle must be emphasized. The traditional Christian iconography, based on the biblical texts, identifies this principle with the person of Mary. It is nevertheless a corollary of this recognition that this receptive principle has an intra-Trinitarian dimension as well inasmuch as radical revelation is about revelation as such and revelation always entails not only the act but also its reception. God as actus purus is the infinite act which infinitely contains the passivity belonging to an act. And if this infinite act is revelation, this infinite revelation entails its suitably infinite reception. The principle of reception is only rarely identified in theological considerations, because the doctrine of the inner relations of the Trinitarian persons may seem sufficient to account for the mutual reception of the revelational activity. In the history of Mariology, the person and salvific role of Mary have been developed is such a way that the term mediatrix or mediatress could be accepted as the proper description of the mediating role Mary plays in the work of salvation. The underlying development involved not only a continuous tradition of popular and theological beliefs about the old understanding of the intercessory role of Mary in salvation, but also the unique series of so-called Marian apparitions from the Middle Ages up to our day. Some of these apparitions received the official approval of the Church and proved to be decisive in the theological and spiritual development of the faithful, such as the apparitions of the Immaculate Conception to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France, in 1858.24 The Marian apparitions can be considered as a consistent continuation of the role of the Virgin Mary as depicted in the Bible, and also as the extension of her role as “the head of the apostles” in the way this role has been suggested by the traditional Christian iconography. On the basis of the complex spiritual and doctrinal tradition it may

24 The Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary was declared December 8, 1854; the apparitions in Lourdes took place three years later (beginning February 11, 1858) with the focus on the person introducing herself as “Immaculada Councepciou” to Bernadette. The events in Lourdes have led to a particular popularity of Marian piety in the Catholic Church which is palpably present in spirituality even today.

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be said that a proper understanding of intra-Trinitarian revelation cannot be separated from a certain emphasis on the Marian principle. Indeed, the involvement of this principle into considerations concerning the intra-Trinitarian dimension of revelation expresses in its own way the principle of correlation between the revealer and the receiver of revelation. The Marian principle, in other words, is the indication of the principle of correlation belonging to the heart of revelation. In the context of apocalyptic personhood, the Marian principle can be considered as the receptive side. Apocalyptic personhood is not merely the active expression of revelation as revelation, or direct self-revelation, but also the one entailing the passive principle of revelation. Apocalyptic personhood proves to be, in this sense, dual. On the one hand it is an activity, on the other hand it is receptive passivity. The two sides belong together and the description of the one entails the description of the other. In the framework of a radical philosophical theology of revelation we need to see the importance of this original dyad in which the two sides are complementary to one another. While sexual dichotomy is often considered to be a natural fact, it has a higher origin in the principle of complementarity of revelation. At the same time, this complementarity is permeated by the fact of freedom, a freedom invited to pronounce the fiat to radical revelation. If this freedom is used or refused, if it is considered as a matter of personal option, is a different problem which does not concern us here. Yet it must be emphasized that the fact of freedom belongs to the core of radical revelation, and apocalyptic personhood as the expression of freedom involves the free complementarity of the two dimensions of activity and passivity. e. Conversion I consider the subject matter of conversion as one of the principal ways in which we participate in apocalyptic personhood. Again, the stories of conversion, which are fundamentally important in our perspective, can be found in the New Testament. Already in Peter’s Pentecost speech we find the call: Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38)

There are two important dimensions in this call. On the one hand, it repeats the call of the Tanakh, especially the prophetic writings, to repent and return to the covenant of God. On the other hand, repentance is to lead to baptism in Christ and to the receiving of the Holy Spirit. This means that in spite of the similarities we find between the Old Testament and the New Testament calls to repentance and conversion, repentance and conversion have a more concrete meaning in the New Testament: sin is understood as a sin against Christ (and his Father), and conversion is understood as a turn to the risen Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The distinction between the two kinds of conversion may not be equally clear in every related passage of the New Testament. Yet the general tenor of the latter is not a turning back to an old covenant, but rather the turning to the new covenant in

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Christ, that is, turning to something that did not exist in an explicit form earlier. This “something,” moreover, is not just the teaching of a new prophet or a rabbi, but rather the complete renewal of the godhead in an overall Trinitarian act. This act fulfills the history of salvation and reveals the ultimate reality of the divine. The conversion to Christ is the conversion to the ultimate and apocalyptic fulfillment, a conversion possessing an innermost importance in the reality of the Trinity. The conversion stories in the New Testament are peculiar. The conversion Jesus calls for is to God’s Kingdom “which is at hand” and represented by Jesus himself. That is to say, the conversion leads to God in and through Jesus. Repentance is the presupposition of entering the Kingdom of God, while Jesus equally emphasizes the need for forgiveness. It is indeed the lack of conversion which hinders forgiveness and conversion produces forgiveness. The convert needs to be born again “of water and the Spirit” (Jn 3:5). There are a number of conversion stories in the gospels, such as the calling of the sinners to become disciples or the return of the prodigal son to his father’s house. Yet the most characteristic conversion story is indeed that of Saul: Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” (Acts 9:3–6)

This story is repeated three times in the Acts (chapters  9, 22, and 26). This shows the central importance of the event, an importance we do not find in this explicit form in other conversion stories, such as that of Peter (Lk. 5:1–11), the Greek-Syrophoenician woman (Mk 7:25–30), Zacchaeus (Lk. 19:5–9), or the repentant thief on the cross (Lk. 23:39–43).25 As opposed to the other stories, Paul’s conversion is brought about by the risen Christ which gives to it a special significance and defines its influence for the subsequent centuries of the history of conversions. The three versions of Paul’s conversion show only minor differences and generally agree with other descriptions given by Paul in some of his letters (cf. Gal. 1:15–16; Phil. 3:7–11; 1 Cor. 9:1). The texts on Paul’s conversion in chapters 22 and 26 of Acts emphasize that the appearance of Jesus to Paul happened “about noon” (μεσημβρίαν, 22:6) or “at midday” (ἡμέρας μέσης, 26:13), which has some interest, because at noon the sun shines the strongest, which may cause physical or psychical disturbances during a long journey. Whether here we are dealing with a tradition originating in Paul himself, or rather an editorial intervention which calls attention to the connection between the turning point on the path of the Sun and the event of a spiritual “turn,” is difficult to decide. So much may be noted that two things appear unusual in this tradition: travel is normally suspended around

25 In Acts there are further conversion stories: 2:1–47; 3:1–4:4, 32–37; 8:4–25, 26–40; 9:1–31; 10:1–48; 13:6–12, 13–52; 16:11–15, 25–34.

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midday under that climate, and yet the tradition of the exact and perhaps symbolic time was so strong that it was repeated two times in the extant texts. The theophanic event had its parallels both in the Tanakh and the non-Jewish and pre-Christian literature. In the latter, the stories are often mythological, such as the ones in Sophocles’s Philoctetes, or Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Apuleius’s The Golden Ass.26 In philosophy, the choice of the specifically philosophic way of life was often depicted as a conversion.27 On the borderline territory between Hellenism, Judaism, and Christianity we find a similar description in Joseph and Aseneth. This text offers an account of the conversion of Aseneth from her idols to the God of Joseph. Through her conversion, Aseneth will be made new, and refashioned, and given new life; and . . . shall eat the bread of life and drink the cup of immortality, and be anointed with the unction of incorruption.28

Aseneth is changed into the heavenly figure of Penitence (or Conversion, Μετάνοια). Since this figure is known from other sources as well,29 it is plausible to suppose that Paul’s story of conversion had its own characteristic context in the Hellenistic (Jewish and non-Jewish) literature and can be properly understood only with respect to this context. However, there are two features which make Paul’s story unique: the historical importance of the story of conversion in the text as it stands, and the uniquely

26 Philoctetes is converted by the direct appearance of Heracles (Sophocles, Four Tragedies, trans. Peter Meineck and Paul Woodruff (Indianapolis:  Hackett Publishing Company, 2007), pp. 249–51). Ovid’s Metamorphoses relates the captain of a ship’s renunciation of improper behavior (i.e., kidnapping) and devout adherence to Bacchus (Ovid, Metamorphoses, vol. 1, trans. Frank Justus Miller (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1968), pp. 165–75). In Apuleius’s The Golden Ass Lucius’s renunciation of magic and unchaste behavior is part of his new devotion to Isis. In Apuleius’s work, Lucius in the form of an ass feels enlightened by the vision of the emerging full moon, in which he recognizes a goddess. The goddess appears to him in a dream and reveals herself as her genuine helper on the way of conversion, purification, and ultimately priesthood (Apuleius, The Golden Ass: Or, a Book of Changes, trans. Joel C. Relihan (Indianapolis:  Hackett Publishing Company, 2007), pp. 233–6). 27 One of the best examples is the conversion of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic, a rarely noticed change of one of the archenemies of Socrates during the dialogue. Thrasymachus appears first as “a wild beast” of Socrates (Republic 336b), later however he learns to agree, even to be ashamed of himself (350d), he becomes “gentle” (354a), and finally a friend (498c). 28 Translated by David Cook in a text available at http://www.markgoodacre.org/ aseneth/ (accessed February 15, 2015). 29 Cf. Andrew Welburn, From a Virgin Womb: The Apocalypse of Adam and the Virgin Birth (Leiden: Brill, 2008), p. 37.

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sharp description of the theophany, or rather “christophany,” in the story. It is clear that the editor of the Acts wanted to make the conversion of Paul one of its focuses. Paul sees and hears the risen Christ and suffers a heavenly initiation:  he fell to the ground and lost his sight temporarily. All these events show that the reports on the conversion of Paul were designed to demonstrate its unique significance. The risen Christ revealed himself to Paul and Paul received the revelation which fully changed his mind and behavior. Just like Aseneth, Paul was “made new, and refashioned, and given new life”—new life in Christ and the Church. Or just like Lucius in The Golden Ass, Paul is irresistibly led to a complete change of his life and to the service of the godhead. In Lucius’s case, the rising of the full moon signifies the appropriate time for the conversion which leads him to the priesthood of Isis, and in Paul’s case, “midday” is determined as the appropriate time when the brilliant principle causes him blindness and calls him into the service of Christ. This unique emphasis on conversion has been an integral part of Christianity. Just as we cannot use the word “religion” in the strict sense to characterize traditions other than Christianity without an appropriate awareness of the history of the term, similarly we cannot apply “conversion” in the strict sense to any change of mind or embracing a certain understanding of the world or again to any returning to an archaic tradition.30 Conversion is first and foremost that which is described in Paul’s story, that is to say, a conversion from being an enemy of Christ to being embraced by Christ. Christianity has produced moving stories of such conversions from Augustine through St. Francis of Assisi to St. Edith Stein, and the essence of Christianity itself, in this perspective, is nothing else than a complex and continuous conversion of a human person.31 Bernard Lonergan is one of the contemporary authors that offered a detailed account of the notion of conversion not merely in the framework of the doctrine of penitence in the Church, but on a broader basis which entails a general understanding of conversion in knowledge, the morals, and religion.32 Conversion is the central expression of human self-transcendence or, as I refer to this anthropic feature here, human openness. Human beings are by nature open to transcendence and thus open as well to an ever more integrated and encompassing conception of themselves and the world; ultimately, a more radical acceptance of God as their “ultimate concern.” There are various kinds of conversion. As Lonergan

30 That is to say, a “conversion” to Buddhism or Maoism would exemplify an inappropriate use of the term. An objective and rich analysis is offered by Lewis R. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 31 On the conversion of Gerda Walther, a friend of Edith Stein, see Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, p. 235. On a complex account of religious conversion, see Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 32 See the insightful summary of Chae Young Kim, William James, and Bernard Lonergan on Religious Conversion, Heythrop Journal:  A  Quarterly Review of Philosophy No. 51/6 (2010), 982–99.

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explains in Method in Theology, conversions may be intellectual, moral, and religious. Intellectual conversion is a radical clarification and, consequently, the elimination of an exceedingly stubborn and misleading myth concerning reality, objectivity, and human knowledge. The myth is that knowing is like looking, that objectivity is seeing what is there to be seen and not seeing what is not there, and that the real is what is out there now to be looked at.33

In other words, intellectual conversion is structurally similar to Kant’s turn from dogmatic to critical thinking or Edmund Husserl’s notion of the “epoche” (which he in fact compares to a “religious conversion”). Moral conversion, however, “changes the criterion of one’s decisions and choices from satisfactions to values.” Furthermore, [a]s our knowledge of human reality increases, as our responses to human values are strengthened and refined, our mentors more and more leave us to ourselves so that our freedom may exercise its ever advancing thrust toward authenticity. So we move to the existential moment when we discover for ourselves that our choosing affects ourselves no less than the chosen or rejected objects, and that it is up to each of us to decide for himself what he is to make of himself. Then is the time for the exercise of vertical freedom and then moral conversion consists in opting for the truly good, even for value against satisfaction when value and satisfaction conflict.34

Moral conversion thus is conversion to the overall objectivity of the good and the secondary importance of the subjectively satisfying. It entails a turning around of values and giving preeminence to the really preeminent, and a putting aside, yet not eliminating, the affective side of values. Finally, religious conversion in Lonergan’s understanding is “being grasped by ultimate concern.” This conversion is other-worldly falling in love. It is total and permanent self-surrender without conditions, qualifications, reservations. But it is such a surrender, not as an act, but as a dynamic state that is prior to and principle of subsequent acts. It is revealed in retrospect as an undertow of existential consciousness, as a fated acceptance of a vocation to holiness, as perhaps an increasing simplicity and passivity in prayer.35

33 Mark Morelli and Elizabeth Morelli, The Lonergan Reader (Toronto:  University of Toronto Press, 1997), p. 521. 34 Morelli, The Lonergan Reader, p. 523. 35 Morelli, The Lonergan Reader, p. 524.

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It is therefore religious conversion that ultimately accomplishes the intellectual and moral conversions, and the latter two remain only fragmentary without the third. The merit of Lonergan’s analysis consists in that he connects various traditions in the history of the theory of conversion, in particular the existential conversion (Tillich’s “ultimate concern”) with the conversion given in the transcendental tradition (Kant’s awakening from “dogmatic slumbers”) and the latter two with the moral conversion of the penitence tradition in Christianity. In a broader perspective, we may say that the three forms of conversion can be conceived in a fourth: not merely in what Lonergan terms religious conversion, but in the conversion that is needed to conceive and explain the three other forms. Lonergan identifies self-transcendence as the fundamental feature of being human, and thus this self-transcendence may be understood as the very form in which the other kinds of conversion can be conceived of. However, here we face a problem:  self-transcendence is a natural feature of human beings. If so, it is a natural capacity in which the otherwise crucially important developments of conversion can be properly understood. There is a logical lacuna here which must be bridged. The solution cannot be found on the level of natural capacities, because self-transcendence leads beyond what is natural. And the solution cannot be found by invoking a certain form of conversion as the effect of a fully transcendent other, because the connection between the transcendent and the immanent, the supernatural and the natural would remain problematic in this case as well. A solution, nevertheless, can be given in the perspective of a radical philosophical theology, which does not consider the human as a lonely island in the ocean of the supernatural, but rather as an organic—while at the same time nonproportionally related—moment of the divine. The notion of creation in the theological sense testifies this latter view: the creation originates in freedom, and freedom is such that it freely produces more freedom, different forms of freedom, nonproportionally distinct forms of freedom, that is, created freedom. Yet these forms are connected appropriately to one another through the original fact of freedom. In a similar way, it is the absolute conversion, understood as the conversion given in its ad intra realm, which makes freely possible and, at the same time, freely actual the emergence of different centers of freedom which are connected to one another by the original fact of freedom and by virtue of their common, though nonproportionally structured, reality. Absolute conversion is expressed prima facie in what the gospels describe as the baptism of Jesus. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, and in this quality he does not need repentance or baptism. Yet he receives baptism—and thereby practices repentance—and expresses thus the ad intra reality of conversion in its absolute form, in a form which makes possible the ad extra communication of revelation. The story of the gospels is the ad extra indicator of what takes places in an unfathomable way ad intra: the gesture of conversion in its absolute sense is brought about so that revelation may be realized. In the context of radical revelation, there is no natural givenness of human selftranscendence. It is radical revelation that creates radical openness above all ad intra in revelation itself. Direct self-revelation as the revelation of revelation has as

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its core the fact of freedom, and it is in this fact where the openness to revelation originates. Human persons are not open by themselves but only and exclusively as moments of the structure of radical revelation. For it is in indirect self-revelation, where radical personhood as total self-donation in and to revelation is born, and it is in direct self-revelation where apocalyptic personhood is disclosed. As we saw above, apocalyptic personhood integrates radical personhood and manifests their common structure of self-donation and self-acceptance. This structure is historically manifested in the founding stories of the Bible; especially in the stories of the New Testament, and it is also manifested in the doctrines of Church and many of her theological interpretations. One of the features of apocalyptic personhood as described in the New Testament is the fact of conversion, and it is in this perspective that we possess this feature in our vocabulary as has been prepared, interpreted, and elucidated by centuries of philosophical and theological reflection. Furthermore, apocalyptic personhood is shared. In the act of sharing, in the act of participation, and also in the act of receiving revelation:  ad extra personhood is created. Its meaning cannot be properly conceived without the ad intra notion of personhood, and just as the latter is disclosed as the inner form of plurality in unity, ad extra personhood is conceived as a moment belonging nonproportionally to the ad intra dimension of personhood. In other words, human persons cannot be properly conceived without the perspective of Trinitarian personhood, and just as Trinitarian personhood is disclosed in the twofold structure of radical and apocalyptic personhood, human persons as well are formed along these lines: they integrate in themselves the twofold structure, yet with a potential emphasis on apocalyptic personhood. Fazzini’s sculpture of La Resurrezione may serve here again as an illustration. Christ’s right hand palm is open to the sky, and his left hand palm is grasping the earth, as it were. These two positions of Christ’s hands express the two dimensions of personhood, the apocalyptic and the radical. Radical personhood is a grasping of structures, the self, concreteness, and suffering, even suffering to death. Apocalyptic personhood, on the contrary, embodies openness and freedom so that it both introduces and accomplishes radical personhood. Radical personhood is embedded in apocalyptic personhood, just as grasping the concrete is embedded in the context of freedom. Christ appears as the synthesis of these two dimensions, and yet it is freedom that makes the concrete possible and it is the concrete that realizes freedom in any given situation. Every human being is not merely a self-sufficient whole and an irreplaceable absolute, but at the same time an openness unveiled through the original openness of radical revelation. Human persons are creations of radical revelation, as it were, inasmuch as they are produced as originally and nonproportionally integrated moments of Trinitarian structures. Any other natural or self-contained conception of human personhood remains a fragment, and while the reality of divine personhood cannot be fully, only nonproportionally, understood, still an emphasis on the Trinitarian perspective makes our self-understanding more complete. In this way, a contradictory and untenable notion of being as such, a being understood without the reality of revelation, can be abandoned.

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f. Stoning Still remaining in the framework of the aspects of apocalyptic personhood, I need to go over to another story in the New Testament and to a further aspect of our subject matter. So far we have seen that apocalyptic personhood can be described by using some biblical narratives which display, properly seen, various structures determining such a personhood. The Kingdom of God, the Son of Man, Resurrection, Pentecost, and Conversion offered not only the possibility of textual analysis, to the extent it is realizable in our context, but also the discovery of their historical influence on the development of our cultures, psychological attitudes, concepts, and our entire personhood. At the same time, it has been possible to outline the structural connections these aspects display on the conceptual level of a radical philosophical theory. When I have chosen the story of the stoning of St. Stephen from Acts to introduce and illustrate a further important aspect of apocalyptic personhood, I was motivated by the following. Apocalyptic personhood is not merely pure activity and not even simply an arrangement of activity and passivity (as we saw it especially by describing the aspect of Pentecost), but rather a dimension of radical personhood inasmuch as it is connected to apocalyptic personhood. Radical personhood and apocalyptic personhood are connected to one another essentially yet always in a way which entails a turning point, a break, some form of suffering, or again a kind of self-sacrifice. The nature of radical personhood is such that it reaches its fulfillment in apocalyptic personhood through a graphic occurrence. That is to say, martyrdom is the central occurrence creating such a connection, because it is in martyrdom that radical personhood testifies (μαρτυρεῖ) to its fundamental belonging to apocalyptic personhood. The description of the stoning of St. Stephen is one of the central expressions of such a martyrdom in the New Testament. The story of St. Stephen has two important parts: the one is his speech before the Council (συνέδριον, Acts 6:8–7:53), and the other is the stoning itself (7:54– 60). The speech of Stephen offers a unique summary of the pre-Christian history of salvation; its focus is on the tension between God and his disobedient people. God led Abraham out of “the land of the Chaldeans,” he gave him a promise, a covenant. He made Joseph an important leader in Egypt and led the impoverished people of his father and brothers to the richness of the Pharaoh’s empire. In Egypt, God sent Moses to deliver his people, but they did not listen to him. They formed idols for themselves and built, most importantly, a temple in due course of time. When God sent prophets to give them counsel and admonition, they persecuted and killed these holy people. They “received their law by the direction of angels,” but did not keep it. The main conflict, according to the speech of Stephen, is between God’s living revelation as opposed to the human work, between the direct divine presence in the holy and just one (Acts 3:14), and the cult in the temple. The reaction of the people to God’s immediate presence is persecution and murder. They persecuted and murdered the holy and just persons sent by God to them to express his divine immediacy.

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The reaction of the Council to Stephen’s speech is not explained in any detail, but we can suppose that the sign of anger—“they ground their teeth against him” (Acts 7:54)—can be seen as the description of the quality of their emotions. The “grinding” or “gnashing” of teeth” (ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων) is the sign of damnation in Luke (13:28) and also Matthew (8:12, 22:13). However, Stephen may not have been murdered by the people of damnation had not he declared his vision: Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56)

By expressing his vision, Stephen reveals his close connection to “the Son of Man” (the only place besides the gospels where this expression is used). Accordingly, the reaction is that of the damned to the blessed. They “ran at him with one accord” and stoned him. It must be noted here that the expression “with one accord” (ὁμοθυμαδὸν) is the same as the one the text uses to describe the effect of the Holy Spirit on the community of the apostles (Acts 1:14 and perhaps Acts 2:1) and it thus points out here the existence of a negative community, a community of damnation, that is, a community organized to murder the saints of God “with one accord.” Just as they murdered “the holy and just one,” that is, Christ, they murdered Stephen as well, thereby identifying Stephen in a certain way with the holy and just one. Just as Jesus on the cross, Stephen cries out before his death: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”; and he adds: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:59–60). Stephen “fell asleep,” which alludes to the understanding that he was taken to the heaven by Jesus. In a sense, Stephen follows the example of the prophets in the Tanakh. Yet his speech contains a peculiar interpretation of history and—beyond the curious fact that, for instance, he does not mention the Captivity—this history is construed as a continuous combat between good and evil, God’s immediate presence and, as a reaction, its rejection precisely by those to whom this presence was given. The antagonism does not dominate merely the relationship between God and his “enemies” (say, pagan peoples), but rather the relationship between God and his elect; his own family. This recalls the dualism described in the Gospel of John, chapter 8, where the “father” of Jesus’s opponents is said to be the devil (διάβολος, Jn 8:44). As in John the work of the devil is the “desire” of Jesus’s adversaries, in the Acts it is again a certain kind of desire—“they ground their teeth against him”— that drives Stephen’s enemies. The emotion caused by the martyr is shown to be the work of the evil principle; and no explanation is offered in the text for this continuous conflict between good and evil leading to the apparent victory of the latter. Accepting evil’s victory, that is, the murderous emotion of the “evil generation” (Lk. 11:29), is already a fulfillment which is expressed in the direct sight of “the Son of Man” standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56).36 The opening of the heaven

36 For the use of “standing” instead of “sitting,” see Talbert, Reading the Acts, p. 64.

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and the opening of Stephen’s eyes to the heavenly figures are necessarily related to one another; the one opening entails the other. Martyrdom is defined as participation in Jesus’s sacrificial death and resurrection; the martyr is the “witness” (μάρτυς) of the living power of Jesus, just as Stephen witnessed “the Son of Man” and was called indeed a martyr (“witness,” Acts 22:20). As Augustine later defined, being a martyr is related to the cause and not to the kind of suffering (“Martyrem non facit poena, sed causa”).37 Yet there is a stronger condition that makes martyrdom possible, namely, the underlying ontology of good and evil in the sense described above. It is only in the framework of the ontology of the antagonistic opposition between God and his rejecters, between good and evil, that the notion of martyrdom of Stephen is conceivable. This understanding belongs to the core of the gospels: God is murdered in Jesus, because the world could not be redeemed in any other way. The world is so much under the power of evil that the good is necessarily victimized.38 The underlying idea is this: the extremity of evil can be neutralized only by the self-sacrifice of the good. In this way, the evil principle is satisfied, because it “believes” that it has overcome the good. In reality, however, it is precisely by the self-sacrifice of the good that the good principle triumphs. Its victory is given in the fact that the good is nonproportionally greater than the evil and it is capable of sublating even the apparent victory of evil into a still greater good. The evil principle is used in the process of the production of still greater goodness, because, as already the Platonic text suggested, “the Good must always have defeated and must always defeat the evil.”39 Accordingly, it belongs to the core of Stephen’s martyrdom that his death entails his glorification. When he is murdered, he faces the Son of Man at the right hand of God. In other words, he participates in divine presence and becomes himself an indicator of divine presence. His person receives divine presence and expresses it in his preaching, confession, prayer, and forgiveness. Stephen becomes the very expression of apocalyptic personhood inasmuch as his person integrates the radicality of suffering and the glory of his vocation. In the act of receiving the glory, Stephen becomes integrated, through “the Son of Man,” Christ, into the life of the Trinity, which is disclosed in the text of the Acts as the relationship between God, the Son of Man, and the Vision in which Stephen participates. In this version of participating in apocalyptic personhood it is the suffering, the stoning, the death of the martyr that comes to the fore. However, we would not see him as a martyr, were not he pictured as belonging to the Trinitarian context, the perspective of the glory of God. It is the death of the martyr that glorifies God, or put it differently, the glory of God is shown in the person of the martyr.

37 St. Augustine, Sermo 285, 2 (Patrologia latina 38:1293). 38 Jn 7:7:  “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I  testify of it that its works are evil.” 1 Jn 5:19: “We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one.” 39 As quoted above in Chapter 4, footnote 13 (Plato, Epinomis 988e).

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To sum it up: Radical revelation as the revelation of apocalyptic personhood is the immediate presence of God in such a way that suffering and glorification are integrated in it; and in martyrdom, they are integrated so that the suffering, the radicality of personhood, receives a strong emphasis. By stoning the martyr, the “evil generation,” which has the heart of stone, is liberated from its weight. They can throw away their stone hearts and may receive hearts of flesh, as happened to Saul, one of the participants in the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58). Stoning the martyr is not merely the effect of “grinding their teeth against him,” it is not merely the work of the evil principle, it is at the same time the possibility of conversion and thus the glorification of God. In a similar way, radical revelation discloses apocalyptic personhood as the expression of ultimate freedom. This freedom provokes the rise of the opposing forces of nonfreedom. Thus freedom is confirmed in three different ways:  in the freedom of the revelation of apocalyptic personhood; in the freedom of receiving apocalyptic personhood in a participatory way; and in the freedom that is created by the free emergence of non-freedom, because non-freedom, ultimately, is one of the possibilities of freedom. Therefore, this possibility leads in its own way to the reaffirmation of freedom as a fact. In this development the fulfillment of freedom is made possible. The reception of apocalyptic personhood in martyrdom points thus to the ultimate fulfillment of freedom. Adam Elsheimer’s The Stoning of St. Stephen illustrates this conclusion in an artistic way.40 In the center of the painting we see the martyr in the circle of his murderers. This describes the ontology I  mentioned; the heart of reality is represented by the martyr, yet the periphery is dominated by the evil principle. The entire environment, as depicted colorfully by the young painter, is under the sway of evil: the observer sees all around figures belonging to the executing community, representatives of “the evil generation.” The only exception is the young man in the left corner of the painting: Saul sitting in darkness—a reference to his coming illumination. Stephen is represented in accordance with the biblical text: Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. (Acts 7:60)

His face is that of a young and innocent man with blood dripping down onto his face and to the ground; his two hands are held in the position of acceptance and obedience. Yet Stephen is already illuminated by the glory of God: in the upper left corner of the painting, the Father and Jesus can be seen surrounded by holy angels; and one of these angels is offering the wreath of blessedness to the martyr. The light coming out of God embeds Stephen in the Trinitarian perspective; he is shown—indeed, by the master stroke of the painter—just in the second when the last and fatal strike is to be expected from the executioner standing behind the martyr.

40 In the possession of the National Gallery of Scotland; painted around 1603.

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Apocalyptic personhood is realized in a special way in the person of the martyr. While the death of the martyr is seen by many as a “tragedy,” the martyr himself or herself sees what the painter above lets us see unambiguously: the martyr belongs in his or her way (i.e., nonproportionally) to the community of the Trinity. He or she is the realization of this glorious community and as such he or she understands martyrdom as an integral part of Trinitarian reality. We may call this the subjective view of apocalyptic personhood, while for the martyr this view is the only objective and real. It belongs to the heart of apocalyptic personhood that what appears to be only a subjective conviction to the by-standers is the realization of the apocalypse, the radical revelation of God in the concrete person of the martyr. It is noteworthy that the executioner on the painting is depicted as a figure in many ways strikingly similar to the figure of the martyr: they are the same age and their faces are similar to one another. They could be, indeed, brothers. This apparent similarity between the murderer and his victim is explained by a deep-rooted understanding of good and evil as twin expressions of the same reality, even of the same genealogy, as in the biblical story of Cain and Abel. In a sense, every human person is a martyr and a realization of apocalyptic personhood in the special way open to him or her. The entire reality of human personhood is rooted in the ad intra martyrdom of Trinitarian reality, because it is in this martyrdom that personhood, in its full sense, is realized.41 Human personhood is derivative of that personhood both ontologically—through the act of creation— and metaphysically—through the difference between the finite and the infinite. Human personhood is nothing without Trinitarian personhood and Trinitarian personhood is expressed and also nourished, as it were, by human personhood. It is, however, important to emphasize once again that apocalyptic personhood, originating in the core freedom of direct revelation, unavoidably—yet freely—leads to the emergence of the dismissal of revelation, the hatred of apocalypsis and also to the rejection of apocalyptic personhood in all its intra- and extra-Trinitarian instances. In the perspective of a nonstandard radical philosophical theology this attitude is suitably theological and philosophical at the same time and points to the denial not only of apocalyptic personhood, but also personhood in general and, consequently, divine revelation. g. The Lamb of God The ontology of good and evil and the paradoxical relationship between sacrifice and victory is displayed in a different way in the figure of the Lamb of God in the Book of Revelation. This lamb (ἀρνίον) appears to be different from the Lamb of God mentioned in the Gospel of John (ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, 1:29, 36).42

41 As to the problem of intra-Trinitarian martyrdom, see the next section on the Lamb of God. 42 See also Jn 21:15 where Jesus says to Peter “Feed my lambs” (Βόσκε τὰ ἀρνία μου)— that is, his “lambs” are “the young of a lamb” (τὰ ἀρνία).

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Aμνὸς is the sacrificial lamb in the Septuagint; and it has been pointed out that the Aramaic word behind ἀμνὸς had the meaning of “servant”; in this way the “Lamb of God” mentioned by John the Baptist refers to the Servant of God as depicted in Isaiah 42.43 In the Book of Revelation the word for the lamb is not ἀμνὸς but ἀρνίον, “a little lamb.” He is certainly the sacrificial lamb, as the Septuagint translation of Jeremiah uses the same word for the Hebrew equivalent: But I was like a gentle lamb (‫כֶבֶּשׂ‬, ἀρνίον) led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me they devised schemes, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.” (Jer. 11:19)

At the same time, this little lamb, seemingly helpless and harmless, proves to be “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev. 5:5). He is a powerful being that becomes victorious in the apocalyptic battles between good and evil. It seems that the composer of the text intentionally chose the Greek word for “little lamb” and then characterized the lamb as a “lion,” a transcendentally victorious being. The strength of the Lamb is given in his weakness, his power in his defenselessness. He synthesizes in himself the sacrificial motif of ἀμνὸς and the victorious features of the lion. This is strong symbolism and the message is clear: what the world believes powerful proves to be weak; and what appears to be defenseless proves to be the ultimate defeater. This understanding is not only deeply biblical (“So the last will be first, and the first last,” Mt. 20:16), but perhaps the central message of the New Testament: the world appears strong and victorious, God (and his representatives) appear powerless; the latter are martyred, “slaughtered,” defeated, while ultimately they turn out to be the real victors. These two qualities are dialectically connected in the sense that in the development of the relationship with the corresponding quality the initial quality changes its meaning and turns into its opposite: the initially strong becomes weak and the initially helpless becomes powerful. There is moreover an ultimate synthesis of this dialectical movement given in the descending of the New Jerusalem.44 43 “The works of C. F. Burney and of J. Jeremias have shown that the Aramaic phrase ‫ פנא האנהא‬which means both ‘Lamb of God’ and ‘Servant of God’ very probably lies behind the Greek expression ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ. Since the expression ‘Lamb of God’ is not commonly used in the Old Testament as a designation for the paschal lamb, it is probable that the author of John thought primarily of the ebed Yahweh. The translation ἀμνὸς is all the more easily explained when one considers that the idea of the ebed Yahweh is related to that of the paschal lamb and that Isa. 53.7 compares the ebed with a lamb. . . . Thus we may consider the designation ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ in Jn 1:29 and 1:36 as a variant of θαïς θεοῦ, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew ebed Yahweh.” Cf. Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, trans. Shirley C. Guthrie and Charles A. M. Hall (Philadelphia:  The Westminster Press, 1963), p. 70. 44 On this, see Chapter 6, section 3.

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In the Book of Revelation the Lamb appears as the highest martyr and yet the real witness of truth and reality. His twofold nature of being the sacrifice and the ruler is expressed already at the beginning of the text: And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. (Rev. 5:6)

The “throne” is clearly the throne of God “who lives for ever and ever,” who “created all things” (Rev. 4:10–11). “In the midst of the throne” cannot refer to anything else than to the fact that God and the Lamb share the throne: they are one. Moreover, the Lamb appears “as though it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6). The verb “slain” (σφάζω) has a uniquely violent meaning: butcher, slaughter, put to death by extreme violence. That is to say, the butchered or slaughtered Lamb “stands” on the throne together with the one “who created all things.” God shares his eternal power with the slaughtered one, and the latter is elevated to the throne of God in his slaughtered quality, as a corpse. At this point we may recall what I pointed out above concerning the painting of Rubens: Just as on his painting the corpse of Jesus expresses a person of the Trinity, also in Revelation the slaughtered one shares the throne of God.45 Yet the slaughtered Lamb has “seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” As it has been emphasized variously, the number seven expresses totality. The “horns” symbolize omnipotence; the “eyes,” omniscience. Independently of the difficulty of imagining realistically such a lamb, the message of the text is clear: the Slaughtered One is at the same time the Omnipotent and Omniscient One; he is God. Here we need to recall that the Slaughtered One appears in the text exactly when someone is called to open the book and lose its seals. It turns out that only the Slaughtered One is worthy of opening the book, by which he triggers the events of the apocalypse. When he takes the book, he receives divine worship, and the text emphasizes again that it is due to his being murdered that he is worthy of opening the book. The Greek text is unambiguous:  The Lamb as slaughtered is worthy of receiving power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing (Rev. 5:12). It is also important that the Lamb—with seven horns and seven eyes—is worthy of these exactly seven qualities. The “blood of the Lamb” washes white the robe of the martyrs; the blood of the Lamb is the means by which the power of the evil is overcome; the Lamb is “slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).46 Yet he is the leader of the elect (Rev. 14:1) and he 45 See above Chapter 3, 9. Chapter 3, section 9. 46 RSVCE says: “And all who dwell on earth will worship it, every one whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain.” However, various translations interpret these lines variously. Often we have the order of phrases I used above in the main text, such as in KJV: “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from

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overcomes the power of the beast and its allies (Rev. 17:14). The “marriage of the Lamb” is the fulfillment of his victory which is expressed in the new heaven and the new earth, that is, in making all things new. In the new universe, the light emanates from the Lamb (Rev. 21:23); its temple is “the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev. 21:22); and the water of life proceeds from the “throne of God and the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1). The ἀρνίον proves to be a universal being with divine qualities. He belongs to God, he is God, and he possesses the power of encompassing renewal. His personality is clearly displayed by the actions attributed to him: he is worshipped; he opens the seals of the book of life; he has divine wrath; he feeds his elect and leads them “to springs of living water” (Rev. 7:17); he has “presence” (14:10:  ἐνώπιον, being in the sight of someone). Moreover, he sings a song like the song of Moses, he has marriage and a wife, he is served by his servants and enlightens his new world. The Lamb is very close to Christ or perhaps even identical with him. All these descriptions are summarized in an apocalyptic writing, in the “revelations” given to John, the “servant” of Christ (Rev. 1:1). The Lamb of God is the focal expression of apocalyptic personhood. This personhood is revealed and thus shared with the witness, John. John receives this personhood inasmuch as he is one of the followers of the Lamb. The personhood is of a double nature: it is annihilated yet renewed, it is human yet divine, it is omnipotent yet defeated and persecuted, and it is a synthesis of these features in such a way that the omnipotent and victorious dimension integrates in itself the suffering personhood without destroying it. The Lamb is slain from eternity. Apocalyptic personhood is the eternal realization of passion. At the same time, the Lamb receives omnipotence in view of his passion, suffering, and slaughter. Apocalyptic personhood is the fulfillment of such omnipotence. Apocalyptic personhood is directed to radical newness. Yet this newness is the result of the synthesis of defeat and glorification, and even in the new universe it possesses its double nature integrated in a dynamic way. Apocalyptic personhood is ultimately oneness, yet this oneness merges in itself the two main dimensions of passion and action, suffering and healing, death and resurrection. Its oneness is thus of the absolute kind, as it contains its underlying differences in a higher and unified way. One of the central paintings of the famous Ghent Altarpiece shows the Lamb of God in a Trinitarian perspective.47 On the top of this part of the altar painting the Holy Spirit is shown in a gloriole. Below is an altar built on a meadow, and on the the foundation of the world.” Since in Rev. 17:8 we also have a similar expression and here the “the foundation of the world” belongs to “the book of life,” it might be the case that we need to understand Rev. 13:8 in the same way. Logically, nevertheless, the difference is not cardinal, because if there is a book in which the names of the elect are written “before the foundation of the world,” then this book of life must also entail the “slaughter” of the Lamb that gives life to the elect and, in this sense, the Lamb is “slaughtered from the foundation of the world.” 47 The Ghent Altarpiece (called also the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb or The Lamb of God, Dutch: Het Lam Gods) is located in the St. Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. The

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altar there stands the Lamb with a gush of blood pouring into a chalice. Behind the Lamb angels hold a cross, and other angels surround the altar and sing their praise. In front of the altar the fountain of the water of eternal life is shown; clerics and lay people are gathered together to pray and sing. The painting is determined by the three focuses: the Holy Spirit, the Lamb, and the fountain of the water of eternal life. Since the Father is painted in a different piece beyond the Adoration of the Lamb, the Trinitarian perspective is fulfilled not merely in one painting, but in the entire altarpiece. In this way, the Lamb is shown as a symbol of the Son. The elects surround the fountain and the altar and they are the ones participating in divine revelation. Is there a possibility to translate the insights concerning the Lamb of God as the realization of apocalyptic personhood into a non-biblical or nontheological language? Below I will attempt to show that aspects of such a translation may be realized by exceptional artists. Yet the Lamb of God, as is depicted in the Book of Revelation, so deeply permeates our Christian identity that any alternative description leads us back to the same fundamental symbolism. The situation is somewhat similar to the interpretations of Plato’s texts: either we apply a narrow perspective and use a terminology which remains unable to discover the richness of the Platonic text, or we return to the texts themselves and remain satisfied with a kind of commentary. The symbolism of the Lamb of God calls for a similar commentary even in the context of a radical philosophical theology. For this symbolism, whoever may have been its author, has proved to be epochal: we see it realized not only in individual lives but also in lives of communities and the life of history itself, indeed in the historical context we identify as Christianity. At the same time, it is not possible to go beyond this symbolism by a Nietzschean inversion of its contents: for indeed the Lamb of God is such a refined synthesis of opposites—it is Slaughtered and Victorious at the same time—that it seems to be impossible to produce a negative of it. In this characteristic, the Lamb of God proves to be the eternal symbol of apocalyptic personhood. The weakness of the symbol is its strength and its strength is its weakness. Indeed, it is the clear expression of the enduring truth of Christianity which cannot be turned out of itself or reduced to any of its components.

4. Trinitarian Relations The Book of Revelation offers a Trinitarian perspective in which the persons of the Trinity are intimately connected to one another. The Lamb shares the throne of the Creator. The Lamb opens the book of life which turns out to be the activating force of apocalyptic history. Yet this history leads to fulfillment both in the economic and the immanent senses. While the eternal structure of

altarpiece comprises twelve panels, eight of which are hinged shutters. All the wings have been principally executed and completed by Jan van Eyck between 1430 and 1432.

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the godhead is not changed, the development of the economic structures, the war between the Lamb and his enemies, leads to an important result, namely, the full renewal of reality. Divine persons are involved in this renewal, although the recurring statement of “Alpha and Omega” refers to the unchanging framework of all occurrences. Nevertheless, the renewal of the universe is certainly a change that is determined in an intra-Trinitarian way, and while the creation remains “outside” the Trinity, Trinitarian persons participate in the process of the universal renewal. It is equally important to emphasize that self-revelation is common revelation in the unity of persons. Inasmuch as we speak about divine self-revelation, we may understand thereby not merely the self-revelation as formed in the persons but also as the common act of the persons in their selfsame unity. It is not a fourth source that reveals the persons but the divine unity or selfhood which is revealed in three personal forms. In this unity all the persons take part in their own ways: the Father as generative selfhood, the Son as generated selfhood, and the Spirit as processed selfhood. Inasmuch as they are persons of the selfsame unity of self-revelation, they express self-revelation in their personal forms. This does not mean a community without inner relations and distinctions, because it is only the second person that becomes incarnate and glorified, it is only the first person that generates, and it is only the third person that proceeds from the Father and the Son. Divine selfhood becomes expressed in personal forms and the specific personal activities contribute in their own way to the absolute, eternally happening realization of self-revelation. Thus, the incarnation, resurrection, and glorification realize personhood in a characteristic and unified way so that this realization has an overall effect on the reality of self-revelation and also on the reality of personhood in the case of the other three persons as well. The Father is Father with respect to the Son as eternally generated, incarnated, and glorified; the Son is Son with respect to the generating Father; and the Spirit is Spirit as the inner and personal bond of unity of all the persons and with respect to them. Thus these personal relations form the personhood of the other persons as well. This state of affairs opens up two dimensions. On the one hand, the inner life of the Trinity is affected in a certain way. The Trinity, either in its personal or unity structures, is not an entity rigidly isolated from anything external to it. It shapes its inner dimensions and takes part in the formation of the extra-Trinitarian world as well. If we conceive its inner structures, we conceive to some extent the ad extra aspects of reality, and on the basis of the latter we have an understanding of the ad intra dimension. Already in the ad intra sense, the Trinity is the framework of the development of personhood which is traditionally described as the threefold structure of being, generation, and procession. In this overall movement, the central element is the double realization of personhood as radical and apocalyptic. Radical personhood is the expression of self-revelation, and apocalyptic personhood is the fulfillment of radical revelation. It is in apocalyptic personhood that the meaning of radical personhood may be understood; and it is again in apocalyptic personhood that the connection between radical revelation and selfrevelation is clarified to some extent. Radical revelation is the underlying process

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of revelation as revelation, and self-revelation is the revelation of the unity of a manifold structure. Yet already in the description of such connections we can perceive that there is a deeper core in the realm of Trinitarian relations, and this core is an original openness which makes possible revelation, radical revelation, self-revelation, and ultimately the fulfillment of revelation in apocalyptic personhood. This latter is understood as the concrete expression of the original openness. Just because apocalyptic personhood is the concrete openness to an overall renewal, the entire and perpetual renewal ad intra, it shows that concrete openness is made possible by the original openness of the divine, an openness expressed in the fact of revelation. In a traditional terminology, we may call this openness “being,” ousia, essence. Yet these expressions carry the burden of the cosmological presupposition I outlined above.48 The oneness of God, as referred to in the Nicene Creed, may still be called “being” if and only if we understand that this being is not the being given in the cosmological presupposition but a being deeply mysterious, dynamic, open, and productive in its absolute and personal freedom. While the Creed does not mention the “Trinity” by this name it makes clear that the credo is directed to the entirety of the triune godhead in its ultimate mysteriousness and concreteness at the same time.49 The external life of the Trinity can be defined in similar terms. What we can understand of the relationship between radical personhood (passion) and apocalyptic personhood (glory) is given to us in the sources of revelation, such as the teachings of nature and the teachings of revelation in the sense of the Scripture, tradition, and doctrine. Above I have analyzed the ad intra dimensions of revelation by means of the ad extra sources we have, such as the biblical contents and their representations. We learn to understand the ad intra dimension via the ad extra dimension, or to put it more precisely, using ad extra sources of revelation we realize the ad intra connections (always in a nonproportional way). To say that the ad intra dimension comes “first” and the ad extra dimension comes only thereafter is misleading. If the Lamb “is slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8), then the ad extra occurrences have an ad intra dimension which ground them in a special way. We may come to an understanding of the ad intra dimension by using ad extra sources, but precisely these sources originate in an ad intra realm.

48 Cf. Chapter 1, section 2. 49 There are two versions of the Nicene Creed, one from the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and the other from the First Council in Constantinople in 381. The differences are seemingly minor, while some of the new expressions used by the Constantinople Council are significant, such as the interpolation of “heaven and earth” (“Maker of heaven and earth”) or the expression “before all worlds” (“Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (aeons)”) However, it may be more precise to formulate the first line of the Creed in accordance with the Trinitarian doctrine, such as “I believe in One Trinity” or “I believe in Triune God” and so on.

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For us the external sources may come first. In themselves, they come only second as ramifications of the inner life of the Trinity. In a theoretical way, nevertheless, it is not a question of epistemic chronology that is important, but rather the integrated nature of the ad intra and ad extra dimensions. This does not mean any confusion or mixing up the nonproportional difference between the creator and the created. Yet it points out the importance of seeing the one in the perspective of the other and recognizing their mutually— yet nonproportionally—interactive connections. In our concrete case, the original openness, which is the very source of revelation, is expressed in the openness of apocalyptic personhood (one of the reasons why it is called “apocalyptic”). This openness is not to be understood merely in the sense that apocalyptic personhood is open to participation. It is to be understood as openness to radical personhood, and the latter’s openness to the former, and the openness of this absolute personhood to the self of revelation; and the openness of self-revelation to radical revelation; and their common openness to the opening in reality which makes revelation possible and actual at the same time. The openness of apocalyptic personhood has thus two important aspects: on the one hand, it is openness, realized in its fullness in apocalyptic personhood, that is to say, in its conceptual contents and relations. On the other hand, it is openness realized in the economic sense, that is, on an historical scale. As pointed out above, the notion of revelation shows an historical development, and the same is true of apocalyptic personhood, at least in the sense that certain understandings and interpretations of this personhood show a remarkable historical progress. It follows that in the next chapter I need to investigate these two aspects: the conceptual relations and the historical models of apocalyptic personhood.

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1. Preliminaries In order to understand the importance of apocalyptic personhood and to assess its influence both historically and conceptually, we need to determine its possibility in a more complex way. It is in apocalyptic personhood that the radicality of revelation comes to the fore in its full sense. This means, however, that apocalyptic personhood is present in radical revelation in a preliminary form. Radical revelation as the revelation of revelation is understood as the fact of freedom, and while freedom has no reason other than itself, it still has a structure. The structure of freedom can be identified in what freedom achieves: freedom realizes that which has not been the case before. That is a substantive description of freedom and it does not deny that, when freedom is realized, in many ways it is based on prior conditions. Yet what makes freedom freedom in the proper sense is not its peripheral surroundings, nor the material it uses, nor even some forms in which it is realized, but the singularity and uniqueness it achieves. Look at the speech of St. Stephen in Acts again. It is probable that what we read in the Bible is a summary of the real speech Stephen might have delivered. His speech was given in a spontaneous fashion as a reply to the question of the Council. The text in the Acts is a theologically designed summary of the original communication, which freely uses elements of the supposed original and combines them into a dramatic performance. If I want to give a summary of the speech on my part, I will also use my own vocabulary and keep only some of the terms of the text. Had I been in the position of Stephen, my speech would have looked different, and if I have another occasion to summarize my thoughts on the same subject, my homily will be different again in a number of ways. Even if my main thoughts are the same, even if I emphasize the same point (for instance, the rejection of God’s immediate presence by his own family), the development of the argument, the vocabulary I use will be different in the new communication. I may offer the same propositions, even the words and some sentences, but the order of the sentences, the number of words, the stylistic features, the emphases I apply will make my version different from the original. We are, in other words, free beings that choose their vocabulary, order of sentences, trains of thoughts, or may even prefer silence to speaking, in accordance

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not only with our audience or circumstances, but also with our own insights and personal decisions. Such decisions may respond to various factors, such as the age of our audience or the language we use. More importantly, however, we change the emphases, the order of the sentences, sometimes even the vocabulary in accordance with our recurring reflections on the problem we address in our communication. We consider a problem in a certain way and talk about it at a meeting. Yet by the next time—perhaps as a result of questions we had to answer at the previous occasion—we discover further aspects of the problem and develop new elucidations of the questions we have to face. Thus the new speech will be again different as the result of our reflections and free choice of determining the problem appropriately. If we really speak freely, if we do not just repeat a text we memorized, if our speech is the expression of our continuous dealing with the problem we address, then every time we summarize our views on the problem the resulting communication will be different, sometimes even significantly different. We still use the same language, the same vocabulary. Perhaps the style is similar to our previous speeches, yet there is newness in every discussion which cannot be simply reduced to the earlier speeches we gave. There is a free core in every intentional communication of ours, in every action we realize, which is not entirely identical with the previous composition we produced. Human persons are free. Their freedom is expressed in actions. A  human action is more than just an occurrence, because occurrences happen, but actions are done. Doing and happening, action and occurrence are different precisely in that the former have freedom as their core. Actions are accompanied by occurrences of every kind, yet they are still special in that they are decided on a certain level and carried out accordingly. Actions entail responsibility, occurrences do not—or if they do, only inasmuch as they are dependent on actions. Actions are planned, designed, oriented, or organized. Occurrences happen by a natural pattern. Actions have freedom that cannot be predetermined in its core. Even if I respond to an external stimulus in a way that is predetermined in accordance with strong probabilities, in principle I may opt differently, I may choose a different reaction. I am free to do it, and inasmuch as I am aware of myself and am not under some distorting influence, I am able to alter my action. There are certainly limits to my acting differently, limits constituted by physical and psychic circumstances, or circumstances of culture and age, but in all these conditions, the core freedom of my human personhood is expressed in more than one way. I may act differently, I  may change my mind, I  can have a different conclusion or just an emotion which alters my decision as to action. I am free to do that and can do it again insofar as I am aware of myself and am in a standard mental and physical state. Normally, we presuppose that other persons are free to change their mind or just free to follow their own understandings. Thus we may try to convince them, or perhaps even manipulate them. In some cases, we may try to lie to them or mislead them so that they make the decision we want to have. If there is no freedom, there is no lie, manipulation, misleading, because all these actions presuppose and realize the freedom of both the agent and the target of the agent. If there is no freedom, there is not even physical or mental coercion, because the very fact of

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coercion takes it for granted that human persons are free to follow their own mind. Coercion aims at changing the behavior of persons in spite of their preliminary understanding. And even their understanding may be the object of physical or psychic manipulation, because they are free to follow their own way. What is it that constitutes freedom? Let us call it openness. The speech I intend to give, the decision I want to make, the behavior I mean to follow, the composition of a train of thoughts are shaped by an original openness which makes free action possible. I am a human being and defined in a number of ways: by the language I use, by the culture I belong to, by my education and family relations, by conscious, subconscious, and unconscious factors of various kinds. Yet under all these circumstances there is an openness which makes my course of action free— inasmuch as I am aware of myself and am in a standard physical and mental state. Even in difficult psychic conditions, even facing inner and external hardships, an original openness is given to me in which freedom can be realized. This freedom can be enhanced or minimized, limited or enlarged, yet it is still freedom which is made possible by the original openness in the structure of freedom; or rather in the structure of reality. Human persons are part and parcel of reality and their freedom expresses what is given as a possibility in reality, that is, an original openness. Just as my freedom constitutes my being a human person—that is to say, my freedom in a potential or actual form—reality is constituted by an original openness to become other than what it is now, to be developed, changed, altered, synthesized, or fulfilled. Reality is produced by this original openness and there is no reality which is not related to this openness. The laws of nature, matter, energy, the statistical laws of psychology and cognitive science are all related to this original openness, because it is this openness that makes it possible to investigate and discover such rules, laws, patterns, and regularities. Even on the ontological level, things can be different from what they are. We may not possess the sufficient knowledge of the patterns by which they can be different. Even if we know some patterns, we may not know other patterns and ultimately we may not see that reality is shaped by the original openness in such a way that whatever is pattern-like in it is always the realization of the original openness and the implementation of this openness in various ways. If we want to understand revelation as the ultimately defining structure of reality, we need to recognize this original openness. Just as radical revelation is based on the fact of freedom, as we saw above, reality as such is based on the original openness which makes possible its development, variety, structures, patterns, laws, and rules. Freedom is rooted in this original openness, or put it differently, freedom is the exemplification of this openness. Freedom is dynamic openness, the active possibility to produce something that has never been the case before. Yet all the exemplifications of newness originate in openness. I do not say “the openness of being” or the “openness of existence,” because, as I will show below, I do not accept that ontology or epistemology could explain the fact of original openness. The original openness can be explained only by the fact that reality is fundamentally revelation and revelation is the eruption of original openness. To disclose this openness is the very task of a nonstandard radical philosophical theology, or it is the task of apocalyptic phenomenology, as I called it above. The disclosure

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of openness is the disclosure of the fact and structure of openness. It offers the description of openness as not being an openness of something but merely of itself, an openness of openness. There is richness in this opening, because it is not merely the set of all logical possibilities given in our mind that constitute openness. It is above all the concrete fact of reality as openness, and an entire structure of actualized possibilities as possibilities of openness that lie in the core of reality. Openness is infinite, and this means that it entails both the moment of unlimited openness and its concrete exemplifications. It has a double structure: on the one hand, openness is without any limitation, physical, mental, logical, or mathematical. It is absolutely open. On the other hand, openness entails concrete exemplifications, that is to say, the well-defined moments of openness in their physical, mental, or logical forms. Well-defined forms, nevertheless, presuppose their possibility, openness as such, and the former entails the latter. They build a relation to one another and this relation is the underlying structure of openness. It is in this structure that freedom is positioned. It is related both to the original openness and its concrete exemplification. We human beings know about this freedom and are constituted by this freedom. In spite of all the determinations we undergo, our core awareness is infused by the fact of our freedom. Yet we are aware of the additional fact that our freedom is naturally limited: for instance, we lose consciousness regularly (during sleep) and are liable to sickness, old age, states of mind shaped by strong emotions or needs. We know that we are free. Just any thought of ours is a confirmation of this fact, because we freely chose to think what we want to think (yet always in the framework of a given set of limitations). We also know that our freedom is related to, dependent on, or originates in the freedom of reality, its original openness. As soon as we discover this dependence, we gain an understanding of the original openness of reality. Yet this understanding is only peripheral or formal, because an understanding of absolute freedom would entail the actuality of absolute freedom, which is hindered in our case by our normal limitations. Still, we have a perspective in which original openness is revealed to us, and we understand ourselves as not proportional moments of this revelation. The original openness is disclosed for us in this double sense: first as the fact of our freedom, and second as the perspective in which our freedom is recognized as rooted in the original fact of openness. We understand that reality is openness and this openness is disclosed for us in that which we conceive as the reality of revelation. We conceive, to be more precise, the fact of revelation as radical self-revelation. We understand the unity and plurality in this revelation, and we also understand its Trinitarian structure in the absolute openness, in the concrete forms of openness, and in their relationship. Can we say that reality has a threefold structure and thus an intrinsically Trinitarian form? It seems to me that this is the case: openness is given in its absoluteness, concreteness, and the relationship of the two. The formal and material similarity of this description to the notion of the Trinity is obvious. Openness has a Trinitarian structure; reality is of a Trinitarian “nature.” In the perspective of revelation, we can add that reality expresses its core openness, which is Trinitarian

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in its structure, in ways reflecting the same Trinitarian form. The relationship between the absolute and the concrete is already threefold (absolute, concrete, relation), and we may not err if we suppose that this fact of openness has at the same time a dynamic and integrated structure which can be described along the line of Hegel’s main thesis and that can be understood as the perennial structure of beginning, continuation, and fulfillment. However, we do not need the Hegelian description to understand that reality as original openness is threefold in every important sense, dynamically as well as formally. Neither do we need any ontology or epistemology to recognize that the understanding of openness is the achievement of openness itself: it is the openness in us, because human persons are exemplifications of the original openness of reality. Revelation is understood in the present work as self-revelation. Self-revelation has two main ramifications, the direct and indirect forms. Indirect self-revelation is expressed in radical personhood; direct self-revelation is expressed in apocalyptic personhood. The former is artistically expressed by the left-hand gesture of Fazzini’s La Resurrezione; the latter by the right-hand gesture of the same sculpture. The lefthand gesture expresses the grasp of the concrete; the right-hand gesture displays full openness. Pairs of notions belonging to this duality can be listed ad libitum, such as finitude and infinity, matter and form, darkness and light, and so on. Here it suffices to point out that the both forms of self-revelation are considered with respect to its counterpart. And it is not only that radical personhood is related to apocalyptic personhood, but rather that they constitute a unitary movement of self-revelation culminating in the radical revelation of apocalyptic personhood. The unity of the process of self-revelation can be conceived purely in Trinitarian terms and then the workings of the Spirit may be emphasized as the one realizing the factual goings-on of self-revelation. It is the Holy Spirit, in other words, that effects revelation out of its absolute openness so that revelation is communicated as personhood in all relevant and mutual relations. In the ad extra dimension, in the economy of the Trinity, we do not need a different terminology, because it is indeed the workings of the Spirit that is repeatedly emphasized in the gospels and the Church documents as the real power of an eschatological fulfillment. In other words, the openness we are dealing with here is absolute openness which is the driving force of revelation as self-revelation in its entire development. In other than Trinitarian terms we use the expression openness to designate not a passive state of affairs but rather the overwhelming might of historical and personal fulfillment. In the framework of a nonstandard radical philosophical theology we realize this openness as the ultimate source of both of our subject matter, revelation, and our capacity to conceive revelation in a way which is nonproportionally related to the underlying and overwhelming fact of freedom.1 1 It is worth mentioning that Michelangelo’s Christ on The Last Judgment offers a gesture similar to that of Fazzini. Christ’s left hand is about to grasp the concrete and his right hand is opening an openness. In a slightly similar way, on Raphael’s The School of Athens, Plato’s right hand points to the sky, that is, to openness (as the book under his arm demonstrates), while Aristotle’s right hand (standing on the left side of Plato) grasps the concrete

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2. From Openness to Newness It is in this original openness that the most important moment in reality originates, namely, newness. Newness is the term we apply to anything that has not been the case before. A new day, a new flower, a new asteroid, a new physical or biological regularity we discover, a new industrial product, or, most importantly, a newborn human person all express the feature of newness in their own ways. Nevertheless, newness is normally embedded in pregiven structures and forms. The material composition of a new sun in the universe or a new human being is the same material composition other suns and human beings have; however, the material is newly produced and newly arranged. While we know how biological matter is produced in accordance with its laws, the birth of new matter in the universe is still an unsolved problem.2 Yet there is new matter at least at the beginning of the history of the universe; or at the junctures of cyclical periods. But even if the entire material of the universe was produced at its beginning, the emergence of fundamental forces, the formation of stars and galaxies, and the rise of our galaxy with its sun and the earth on which life became possible are certainly new achievements in more than one way. Life, for instance, must have been an intrinsic possibility in the earliest formations of the universe, yet it arrived relatively late and in its explicit form it was certainly something new as compared to lifeless matter. The emergence of conscious life, human life, and human personhood cannot be understood in any other way than as new developments occurring on the basis of pregiven arrangements as the actualization of intrinsic possibilities. Yet, as Ecclesiastes claims, What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. (1:9)

This old saying—“there is nothing new under the sun”—has at least two problems. On the one hand, if there is nothing new under the sun, the conclusion may

(in ethical terms, as the book under his arm shows). Rudolf Steiner’s sculpture of Christ or “The Representative of Humanity” in the Goetheanum (Dornach, Switzerland) offers a somewhat similar insight, namely, the synthesizing role of Christ of two opposing forces. However, in the Goetheanum sculpture, Christ’s left hand is raised and right hand is kept down. Both hands express the gesture of grasping and none is about an opening. Thus, Steiner’s sculpture offers a closed structure connecting “Lucifer” and “Ahriman”; however, Fazzini’s Christ expresses two basic gestures elevated into the openness of infinity, of which Christ is the embodiment. 2 One of the possible solutions is offered by the Cyclic Model which proposes that in the series of collisions the universe is infused with a sufficient amount of new matter and radiation during each collision to enable the creation of new galaxies, stars, and life from the collision of branes along an extra dimension. See Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok, Endless Universe (New York: Doubleday, 2007).

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not be reached, because a conclusion is always something new in comparison to the premises. On the other hand, if there is nothing new under the sun, the expression “new” (ׁ‫ )חָדָש‬has no meaning at all. However, the conclusion is reached and the notion of newness is used, therefore the biblical saying contains a contradiction. On principle of charity, however, the meaning can be taken as referring to the notion that whatever we deem to be new is not genuinely new, but only seemingly so. However, non-genuine or false newness presupposes genuine or true newness not only conceptually but also genealogically. Kitsch is produced as an imitation of a genuine work of art or some features of such an artwork. The music of Johann Strauss is an unessential follow-up of the Romantic period of great composers. Techné, in Martin Heidegger’s sense, is the rule of the secondary and the tertiary produced mainly in view of manipulation. However, even apparent newness has some newness; even an appearance can be new. Even if not in the genuine sense, apparent newness contains newness on a certain level and in a certain sense. Indeed, if I mistakenly believe that something is new, I acknowledge that there is something new.3 Moreover, the conclusion of the premises is made possible, because the logical structure of the argument is such that it has a logical openness, the underlying dynamism which makes it possible to reach a conclusion. “Premises” are understood already in the possible context of a conclusion and a train of thoughts is tentatively, but at the same time fundamentally, construed so that it reaches a conclusion. This conclusion on the subjective side is always an insight, a direct understanding of a new state of affairs not contained in the premises taken in themselves. Language and thinking are structured along the same line. The potency of conclusion is present in them, which shows that newness has a fundamental role in our mind. However, if there is newness at least in our mind, then there is newness in reality, because our mind is part of reality, or perhaps even more than just a part. Maybe the mind itself is the central moment of reality. Finally, the very notion of newness is by itself a confirmation of the reality of newness, not only because even the appearance of newness is something new and thus it shows that there is newness, but also because the whole range of the meaning of ‫ חָדָשׁ‬points to the fact of newness.4 Newness is rooted in openness, or better, it is the concrete form of openness. Openness is designed to produce newness and newness is produced as the achievement of freedom. Openness, freedom, newness are three moments of the same structure. Openness is the general context in which newness is produced by the activity of freedom. Inasmuch as openness is directed to newness, openness

3 For instance, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss—both belonging to the main development of classical music—showed not only some understanding of, but perhaps even some admiration to, the “laughing genius” of Johann Strauss, the composer of fashionable dance music at the end of the nineteenth century. 4 In its various positions, ‫ שָׁדָח‬can mean a new king, a new house, a new wife, a new garment, a new gate, and even “new spirit” (Ezek. 11:19; 18:31; 36:26), and so on.

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contains the active possibility of newness; it has the form of newness. This form is then realized in itself and in several other forms by the activity of freedom. Freedom is the activity of openness in order to reach newness; thus we can say that freedom is equally fundamental to openness: it is the agent by which newness is produced. As can be seen, the structure of openness is Trinitarian in this approach as well. While the fundamental structure of openness—absolute, concrete, and the relation of the two—is a static description, the present description of openness as directed to newness by the activity of freedom is a dynamic description of the same structure. Newness is nevertheless so intrinsically connected to freedom that genuine newness may not be even conceivable without freedom. This approach may cause some problem with respect to the cosmological question I mentioned, because we may ask what kind of freedom may have any role in the emergence of fundamental forces in the universe. This question, nevertheless, is a strictly scientific one which may not be answered without the appropriate amount of facts we would need to gather for a suitable answer. Yet it must be said that in genuine forms of newness, such as in the case of a speech or a decision, the production of a work of art or just the way we develop a train of thoughts, freedom has a central role. Without freedom, these genuine forms of newness are not conceivable. To repeat the old parable, the probability that the letters occurring in the works of Homer will be inadvertently arranged so that they produce the full text of the Odyssey is very close to zero. Without the creative freedom of the author the genesis of such compositions cannot be sufficiently conceived as being more probable than not. We need not enlarge this example onto the entire universe to be able to see that in the creation of a work of art freedom is essential; in the creation of newness, freedom is unavoidable; in newness as such, freedom has the active role. Miklos Vetö introduced the expression la nouveauté novatrice or “renewing newness” in L’élargissement de la métaphysique.5 As he points out, the notion of newness cannot be comfortably dealt with in the framework of traditional metaphysics. Metaphysics takes as its starting point the givenness of being which entails a perennial structure of the “same,” soi-même. What is new, nevertheless, goes beyond the given framework of the same and points to the other, the totally different, the “otherwise than being” (autrement qu’être).6 Metaphysics must be enlarged so that it can take into account the totally different kind of newness. As Vetö writes, The problem of the metaphysics of renewing newness (nouveauté novatrice) consists in the problem of how it is possible to be otherwise than what is given. “Otherwise” cannot refer to an insignificant quantitative or qualitative change.

5 Vetö, L’élargissement, p. 43; my translation. I note here that a full English translation of this work is under preparation. 6 The expression refers to Emmanuel Lévinas’s important work: Otherwise Than Being, or Beyond Essence, trans. Alfonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998).

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The newness of freedom does not consist in a simple enlargement or in the harmonious process of ripening. On the other hand, neither it is a shrieking amputation which reveals a brutal facticity, a dramatic vulnerability. . . . Genuine newness is realized and fulfilled in the paradoxes and contradictions that attack the limits of classical ontology and cannot be “sublated” by any dialectics. In renewing newness the free action establishes an unforeseen and unforeseeable reality that is not involved or contained in the being of the subject, which cannot be inferred from this subject, but which should nevertheless be conceived in and through the terms of this subject.7

This approach to newness has a positive and a negative side to it. As to the positive side, its emphasis on the irreducible character and creative power of newness makes this approach especially enlightening. For indeed newness is not only that which has not been the case before, but also a dynamic force that creates new things. These new things are such that they are preeminently different from, and other than, the old, the previous, or the preceding. Openness, freedom, and newness go together and determine each other so that openness leads to newness by the activity of freedom. On the other hand, Vetö’s other emphasis on the “paradoxes and contradictions,” on newness “not involved and contained” by the being of the subject, raises some problems. The being of the subject in Vetö’s approach refers to the free agent that realizes free action. This free action leads to “paradoxes and contradictions” so that the given instance of newness cannot be deduced from the being of the subject. However, as Vetö also points out in the above quotation, newness must be understood in terms of the same subject. Here we see one of the paradoxes and contradictions Vetö mentions, because we would need to understand something in a perspective in which it cannot be understood. In other words, we would need to understand freedom in the framework of traditional ontology or metaphysics, while this perspective does not make such an understanding possible. In traditional metaphysics there is no place for genuine newness, because its notion of being is closed and static. Yet it is still this metaphysics which may serve as the perspective of our understanding, inasmuch as we enlarge this perspective so that freedom can have its place in it. Vetö attempts to realize this task by using Kant’s notion of a synthetic a priori judgment as the paradigm of how newness is realized and how reality can be conceived as open to newness. Yet it seems that the analysis of newness offered by Vetö is one-sided. Newness is always new in a context, in a certain relation, with respect to something old, previous, or preceding. The entire meaning of newness is such that it presupposes the context in which it appears as new. To understand newness as something totally different from everything else is to enclose newness in itself, isolate and destroy its newness. Newness is a dynamic and creative force, which produces newness out of the old. The conclusion is given as a consequence of the premises and the openness

7 Vetö, L’élargissement, p. 46; my translation.

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of the logical field to such a conclusion. It would be meaningless to talk about a conclusion without the structure of the premises. Similarly, it is meaningless to talk about newness without seeing the common structure that makes newness possible already in the old, the previous, the preceding. That is to say, openness is precisely the description of the state of affairs in which a given structure is such that it is capable of producing newness through the activity of freedom. Newness is always a synthesis, so it contains the old and the reshaping of the old at the same time. Paradoxes and contradictions may appear in newness, but it is much more the development of openness which defines the emergence of newness. Newness is always emergent and can never be completely separated from the basis on which it appears. This basis—the old or the previous, the axiom or the premise—is changed in the perspective of newness, because they receive their meaning, development, or fulfillment in that which is new. The old requires the new in order to be meaningfully old, and the new needs the old to be meaningfully new. Yet what is old is fully changed in the perspective of the new, just like the conclusion changes the entire context of the premises by putting them into a meaningful context. Thus, an isolation of newness from its natural context is a depriving both new and old of their being new and old with respect to one another. What is old, must be properly conceived in its openness to what is new, and what is new must be seen always in its openness to transform what is old. If we understand reality in terms of openness as its overall characteristic, we do not need to blame traditional metaphysics for its incapacity of conceiving newness appropriately. Below I offer a brief criticism of ontology, metaphysics, anthropology, and epistemology. Yet it is in the perspective of original openness—the openness of openness—that being, subject, person, and the like can find their proper place. It is the dynamic and creative structure of openness that is able to account for being, existence, freedom, and persons. It is the revelational character of reality that is expressed in this openness. It is a radical theory of revelation that makes it possible to understand reality in a Trinitarian way so that the ad extra and ad intra dimensions cooperate in the development of the openness of reality in which human persons can find their place. This place is defined by the disproportion between human and divine persons, and it is defined especially by the nonproportional connection which makes apocalyptic personhood capable of expressing itself in human personhood. Nouveauté novatrice is indeed the proper description of newness inasmuch as newness is conceived in the framework of the dynamic openness of reality. This openness accounts for the fact of revelation, radical revelation and self-revelation, radical personhood and apocalyptic personhood. Human personhood is participation in radical and apocalyptic personhood. Yet human personhood is at the same time the very context in which fundamental gestures of freedom and aspects of apocalyptic personhood are expressed. We may look at the stars to find out what exactly “birth,” “entering,” “conversion,” or “stoning” mean, but it is still in human persons that such fundamental features are most properly recognized. At the same time, whenever we witness such a realization, as, for instance, the fact of freedom, we become aware of the fact that this freedom, conversion, or stoning

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have a nonproportionally deeper realization in the ad intra life of the Trinity, a life we cannot fully conceive, only partially understand. But already this partial understanding gives us a perspective in which human freedom is situated and its peculiar reality is defined. Absolute newness belongs always to this perspective and not to the human exemplifications of it. Even absolute newness is embedded in the absolute openness of absolute freedom, in an absolute structure of reality as it appears in the ad intra dimension. The Lamb of God is slaughtered and victorious at the same time. Neither aspect can be separated from the other. The Lamb is not merely slaughtered or just victorious, but slaughtered and victorious simultaneously so that being slaughtered and being victorious are understood as referring to one another. They have their meaning in their mutual relationship, a relationship meaningful in every detail and aspect. The newness of reality, both in the ad intra and the ad extra senses, is newness of a structured context in which dynamism and creation permeate each other.

3. Newness as Personhood The most essential expression of nouveauté novatrice is the child. As Vetö explains, the child is an ontological fact that has never been before. It is at the same time a spiritual reality entailing the newness of freedom and especially personhood. It therefore embodies the fulfillment of newness.8 There is a fundamental difference between the singular and the unique. The singular is characteristic of anything existing, because even a drop of rain on my window or a cursory impression during thinking has an appropriate kind of singularity. A forgery of a famous painting may appear to be that painting; in reality, however, it entails a singularity different from the original one. We attribute singularity to the original painting in a complex way which contains the artistic quality and therefore its singularity is preeminent. Certainly, it embodies a higher-order singularity than the singularity of its physical components, such as the canvas or the colors painted on the canvas. Artistic singularity is of a special, aesthetic kind, but in terms of its mere singularity it does not differ from the singularity of any physical object. The singularity of a forgery is again a peculiar singularity. If it turns out to be a forgery, we may still attribute to it a relatively high-level singularity due to the expertise of the painter that produced the forgery. Yet the singularity of the original painting is obviously of an even higher value; it has genuine artistic value, while the forgery has only value in a secondary sense. There is thus

8 If newness is basically bound to freedom, then the newness of the child must be based on freedom. In this respect, it is not enough to think of the freedom of the parents, because the conception of an embryo may not involve a free action on the side of the parents. Thus, if freedom and newness are essentially connected, newness must belong to the freedom of a human person so that his or her newness may be realized. That is to say, beyond the ontological fact of newness, there is a meta-ontological fact of freedom entailed in this newness.

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a hierarchy of singularities unfolding from simple natural entities to artistic products, such as a painting, a poem, or a musical composition. Nevertheless, uniqueness in the proper sense is that which cannot be produced twice or reproduced in its genuine being. Singularity may be reproduced and the reproduction may have the same value as the original. A famous painting can be artistically copied and the original piece of music can be repeated several times after its premier. A kind of animal, such as a Pure Spanish Horse, can be reproduced to some extent and even cloning is open now to the reproduction of a certain genetic pool. However, what is unique cannot be reproduced or replaced in the proper sense. It cannot even be copied or reshaped in its uniqueness. It cannot be cloned or replicated in its core, because it possesses an unrepeatable and irreplaceable sort of value, an “inner worth,” which is called “dignity” (Würde) by Kant. As is well known, for Kant only persons possess Würde; things other than persons have a price, but persons are by definition priceless. Their dignity expresses a higher order of value which cannot be paid for, compensated, or replaced.9 Now a child is the embodiment of the genesis of such dignity. Its birth is one of the gestures of freedom, as we saw.10 It has a uniqueness sui generis expressed in its appearance, that is, its birth and development. The child makes manifest that dignity is realized, it has a material form and content, yet its dignity is nevertheless untouched by such processes. A child is the expression of the appearance of the uniqueness possessing Würde; it makes manifest that newness in its highest form is possible in the world. As Vetö writes, The child is procreated not to play a role, to provide a service, that is to say, to fill a void, but rather in order that a new reality is realized, a being that has never been seen, which does not replace anything and nobody and nothing and no one can replace it. This means that every child is an elect, a unique being.11

The birth of a child is a natural process. Yet the child itself expresses something far beyond nature: personhood. The newness of a child is the newness of the person. While the full development of the mature personality of a human being takes several decades, its personal core, its personhood is present already in the child. The uniqueness of personhood is nevertheless so obvious that it possesses a meta-ontological status. We certainly know that the child is born, that it is a person come to the world, yet the personhood realized in the child has a wider scope than just the ontological fact. Its meta-ontological status is expressed in many ways, such as in the parents expecting a child (and they expect, indeed, a person), or our remembrance of persons of the past. In both dimensions, personhood possesses a scope going beyond the actual physical existence of a human being and thus beyond mere ontology. Taken in itself or in its time dimensions, it is the

9 See above Chapter 3, section 7. 10 See Chapter 4, section 4, a. 11 Vetö, L’élargissement, p. 162; my translation.

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uniqueness of personhood that points beyond ontology. If personhood cannot be repeated, copied, substituted, or reduced to something else, then it has a peculiar entity which is not ontological; it is, indeed, personal. Personhood is being in the personal sense, that is, it is not ontological being. Personhood is “being-a-person.” It has a meta-ontological status. It is not true that a person is unrepeatable only in the ontological sense. A person is absolutely unrepeatable: there is no possible time or logical field in which the person as person could be copied or repeated. It follows that being a person is absolute, indestructible, “perennial,” or “eternal.” While these expressions belong to traditional ontology, such an ontology may be sufficient to call the being of a person personal and to recognize its non-reducible character.12 This absolute status is realized in the concrete birth of a child as a person. Even if the child born may have physical or mental disabilities, its personhood is full personhood in the personal, yet not in the functional, sense. A child with Down syndrome or some kind of autism is a person, yet their mental and social functions are hampered. A person in the ontological sense is a person realized in some way. Yet its personhood has the peculiar status of personal absoluteness, and we recognize this absoluteness inasmuch as we understand the child or any human being as a person. In other words, one of the central theses of Robert Spaemann to the effect that personhood is necessarily embodied personhood cannot be held, not only because we expect not yet embodied persons and remember already not embodied persons, but also because personhood is absolute and absolutely unique, which points beyond, even radically beyond, embodiment. This does not mean that the importance of embodiment can be denied: it has its own importance as is expressed in the newness of a child. But it is precisely in the newness of a newborn person that we recognize the meta-ontological status of its personhood.13 Given the meta-ontological dimension of personhood, the newness belonging to personhood must be reinterpreted. The newness expressed in the birth of a child is more than only ontological newness. I do not deny that experience shows the features of ontological newness: we speak of a “newborn” and a newborn is called so because he or she was born recently in the chronological sense. And we are glad to see a newborn child partially because of his or her possibilities in the world which can be realized by providing good circumstances and appropriate education. If someone dies at a young age, we are sorry for the loss the deceased person, the family, and the society suffers. We also tend to think especially of ontological losses, such as the loss of the deceased person’s abilities, creativity, in

12 Of course, persons in their functions can be replaced: as workers, engineers, professors, or members of parliament they can be substituted. But as persons in the genuine sense they are absolutely unrepeatable. This absolute uniqueness is expressed in their characteristic face, eyes, stature, fingerprints, handwriting, or voice; and even if in the context of cultural factors, the same uniqueness is expressed in their behavior, style of thinking, and so on. 13 Cf. Chapter 3, footnote 62.

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particular the loss of the richness of life that could have been personally experienced. Thus the ontological importance of personhood cannot be denied. Yet the newness we attribute to a newborn person goes beyond the ontological realm and appears as a fundamental feature of personhood. Personhood is newness in an essential sense. It belongs to the absoluteness of personhood that it possesses newness. Personhood is newness in its core, and it can realize newness in the ontological sense through its freedom. That is to say, what is absolutely new is, in reality, personhood. I believe it can be seen as a simple and plain fact: newness is not merely ontological, it belongs to personhood in an essential sense and because personhood is meta-ontological, newness belongs to the absolute features of personhood. The Book of Revelation portrays newness in the description of the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is personalized: she is the bride of the Lamb. She is referred to by the words: “I make all things new” (21:5). Newness is initially defined as something different from the past, “for the former things have passed away” (21:4). It is then defined in its relation to the past, but the emphasis is on the difference from the things on the earth: The New Jerusalem is descending from the heaven, it has a meticulously described plan full with symbolical symmetry. Above all, the New Jerusalem expresses absolute order and freedom. It lacks the dark features of our everyday reality, such as night as the loss of light, and the New Jerusalem has a temple in its center from which the Lamb illuminates the entire city. All this refers to a new order purged of wickedness. While the New Jerusalem appears as the end result of the great war between the Lamb and his enemies, it descends from the heaven, that is to say, it has always existed “in the heavens” because it possesses a meta-ontological existence. Newness is thus “eternally” maintained. It belongs eternally to the “New Jerusalem,” the bride of the Lamb. Apocalyptic personhood, exemplified in the Lamb of God, is fundamentally related to this absolute newness, exemplified here in the person of the wife of the Lamb. Since the Book of Revelation is not about the past or the future, but rather about how things are in an essential sense, the newness formulated here is not a utopia or a chronologically distant occurrence. It is not ontological newness, but the absolute newness expressed in apocalyptic personhood. There are pre-Christian archetypes of the newness expressed in the New Jerusalem, such as Plato’s idea of a republic. This republic is primarily realized ideally “in heaven” and it is this heavenly archetype which may serve as the model for earthly states—especially the states we are ourselves as human beings. The heavenly state, nevertheless, is not a rigid model but one that is being perpetually founded precisely by human persons ready to take part in its “practical matters.”14 There is a clear parallelism between the heavenly city of Plato and the New Jerusalem descending from the heaven. Otherwise, nevertheless, we find only a 14 Plato, Republic 594a–595a: “You mean that he’ll be willing to take part in the politics of the city we were founding and describing, the one that exists in theory (ἐν λόγοις), for I don’t think it exists anywhere on earth. But perhaps, I said, there is a model of it in heaven, for anyone who wants to look at it and to make himself its citizen on the strength

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formal similarity between these cities. The notion of an ideal city following the pattern both of Plato and the New Jerusalem led to a number of paradigms beginning with Augustine’s City of God up to modern utopianism in European thought which produced a high number of models, Thomas More’s Utopia or Campanella’s The City of the Sun being just the best-known examples of a very popular genre. In some of these works, the ideal of newness does not receive any particular emphasis. However, William Blake’s Jerusalem is so much determined by the biblical pattern that he considers Jerusalem as a genuinely new reality. For Blake, Jerusalem is a heavenly existence. Yet the very purpose of its existence is to become realized in us, in our lives, in our cities, and more particularly in Blake’s London. The ontological purpose of London’s existence is to become united with the heavenly Jerusalem. Yet in a sense it is already Jerusalem in a general sense: I behold London; a Human awful wonder of God! He says, Return, Albion, return! I give myself for thee: My Streets are my Ideas of Imagination. Awake Albion, awake! and let us awake up together. My Houses are Thoughts; my Inhabitants, Affections, The children of my thoughts, walking within my blood-vessels, Shut from my nervous form which sleeps upon the verge of Beulah, In dreams of darkness, while my vegetating blood, in veiny pipes, Rolls dreadful thro’ the Furnaces of Los, and the Mills of Satan. For Albion’s sake, and for Jerusalem thy Emanation I give myself, and these my brethren give themselves for Albion. (29–39)15 By Jesus’s self-giving to London, and by the realization that London is actually the body and mind of Jesus, it becomes possible to unite the Heavenly Jerusalem and the empirical London. London is called to become Jerusalem in this sense, that is to say, it is called to renew its empirical existence by the power of the eternally new Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the reality of absolute forgiveness. We are sinful human beings (as opposed to the teachings of the “Deists” as Blake points out) and as such we are invited to a full reconciliation with each other and

of what he sees.” Plato, The Complete Works, p. 1199. Cf. Phil. 3:20 (and Chapter 2, footnote 28 above):  “But our commonwealth is in heaven,” where “commonwealth” (cf. Vulgata’s conversatio) is better translated as citizenship or government, a synonym for Plato’s πολιτεία or republic. The famous passage of Plato has become the source of the idea of the “City of God” as an ideal empire during the subsequent millennia. 15 William Blake, “Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion,” in David V. Erdman (ed.), The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake (Berkeley :  University of California Press, 2008), pp. 144–258, here at p. 180.

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with Jesus. Blake expresses this idea in complicated meters but also in such popular lines as the ones we all know: England! awake! awake! awake! Jerusalem thy sister calls! Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death? And close her from thy ancient walls. . . . And now the time returns again: Our souls exult & London’s towers Receive the Lamb of God to dwell In England’s green & pleasant bowers.16 The central notion is biblical: the Lamb of God as the center of New Jerusalem must be the center of a personalized England. Blake’s apocalypse, however, is not utopian; it is spiritual. Just as we are called to reconciliation with each other, we are also called to be united with the Lamb of God in the most genuinely spiritual sense and thus realize the eternal newness of the Slaughtered and Glorified One in our concrete existence as individuals and as communities. The power of such notions did not avoid the attention of the politicians that needed to create enthusiasm in the midst of the First World War. Out of such intentions the beautiful hymn Jerusalem is born and keeps its popularity even today. As the text of the poem suggests, we are responsible for the realization of Jerusalem on earth. Accordingly, Blake wishes to build the New Jerusalem with “mental fight” and “sword,” so that the “Satanic mills” of London may be destroyed and the “unfolding clouds” bring “the chariot of fire,” the apparently most suitable vehicle for the New Jerusalem.17 Blake’s aspiration is seen in our context as the expression of apocalyptic personhood. Apocalyptic personhood is directed to absolute newness, as depicted in the Book of Revelation, which is followed and interpreted by Blake. The importance of his work lies in the fact that, by composing such prophetic poems and their illustrations, Blake realized apocalyptic personhood in his own characteristic way. He realized its openness to absolute newness, forgiveness, the empirical realization of universal reconciliation in one’s life and the life of the community. We certainly see that the richness of Blake’s ideas and self-made mythologies are often far removed from traditional Christian dogmatics. Yet, given the context of his age and the upheavals of the then current religious and political situation, most of Blake’s ideas do not seem unusual. He was a dissenter and opposed both to the state religion of Anglicanism and the natural philosophies of Deism. Yet his strong emphasis on the Bible, the person of Jesus, and a spirituality unmistakably evangelical in character allow us to see his fundamental ideas as Christian. With respect to the

16 Blake, “Jerusalem,” in The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, p. 233, 1–12. 17 This poem is contained in Blake’s “Milton” and not in his “Jerusalem”; see The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, pp. 95–143, at p. 95.

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understanding of apocalypse, Blake emphasized above all “mental apocalypse.” As Robert Ryan writes, the true reformation Blake strove for was more important and more powerful than any natural or political crisis. Blake considered such a crisis as the expression of the mental apocalypse unavoidable for all that want to share the eternal life of Jesus. This emphasis on mental apocalypse is the most important expression of the way how Blake understands apocalyptic personhood.18 It is noteworthy that Christian iconography has not developed a popular picture of the Heavenly Jerusalem. In this way it has kept the door open for a variety of interpretations, among which Blake’s poems represent a spiritual kind. They are directed to the newness of Jerusalem and the full renewal of his homeland in accordance with the heavenly pattern with the “Holy Lamb of God” in its center. However, depictions of the Heavenly Jerusalem remained sporadic in Christian iconography. Beyond the few icons we have from the first millennium, it is perhaps the mosaic of the Aix-la-Chapelle in Aachen that offers a certain interpretation of the City of God. The Ghent Altarpiece displays an interpretation of the New Jerusalem. There is a representation of the Heavenly Jerusalem in Blake’s original edition of Jerusalem, yet this picture—the Two forms of Los with Enitharmon (Plate 100 of Jerusalem)—shows Jerusalem only schematically in the background. But no other famous or influential painting was created on this subject matter for many centuries. The reason may have been only that the description itself in the Book of Revelation is of a symbolic nature and does not offer too much space for artistic imagination.19 In 1917 Aristarkh Lentulov (1882–1943), the futurist Russian painter, produced a picture with the title The New Jerusalem.20 This painting is classic Cubist art. It attempts to interpret reality as formed or shaped by an underlying structure of gestalts which permeate and define the prima facie visible field. It is not the case that Cubism dissolves reality into “cubes.” This is a misunderstanding of

18 Robert Ryan, “Blake and Religion,” in Morris Eaves (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to William Blake (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 153. 19 Analyzing some contemporary artistic representations of the Heavenly Jerusalem, Daan Van Speybroeck emphasizes that there is an “overdetermination” in such representations, one that puts Jerusalem into a conflictual context while the name refers to “peace.” Indeed, a version of this overdetermination may have been the cause why an overall iconography has not been developed during the Christian centuries of art. Jerusalem was under Muslim rule for many centuries which may have hindered many artists in having a view of the earthly city and, based on that view, a pattern of the representation of the heavenly city. Today the real Jerusalem creates a different overdetermination connected to the historical and theological significance of the city. Cf. Daan Van Speybroeck, “Speybroeck, Daan Van:  The Overdetermination of the Heavenly Jerusalem. Contemporary Windows by Gérard Garouste and Jean-Michel Alberola,” in Jeroen Goudeau, Mariëtte Verhoeven, and Wouter Weijers (eds), The Imagined and Real Jerusalem in Art and Architecture (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 237–53. 20 In the possession of the State Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

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Cubism. What Cubism offers is the representation of the infusion of visible forms by the deeper structure of contexts, gestalts, that is, qualities of color and form. Lentulov’s painting shows Russian Orthodox churches in a Cubist perspective in which the forms, the colors, and the lights are equally well-designed. In the center we see three churches with the typical onion domes (or perhaps just one church with three domes). The forms of the domes are echoed all around the painting, such that even the trees below and the clouds above reiterate these forms. The dark lower parts, with a mixture of deep blue, black, and red shapes, slowly turn into the lighter colors of the churches of which the domes radiate with a golden light. The background is filled with the shades of blue. The clouds permeate the churches and share their color. Light is glowing from the background and also from the domes. The painting is dominated by this radiation and the forms of the churches so that the entire canvas can be seen as a painted music of church forms embedded in light. The artist represents reality as imbued by the underlying structure of church forms conceived as sources of light. Indeed, we find on this painting an interpretation of the relevant parts of Revelation with reference to the “New Jerusalem.” The churches are renewed due to the imagination of the painter, and also to the Cubist vision in which reality is conceived in a series of original gestalts. Finally, the renewal is expressed by the development of light from the dark tones below the shining qualities in the middle dimension. This development, the development of the birth of light, characterizes the picture.21 In its description of the New Jerusalem, the Book of Revelation teaches the full renewal of personhood. It also conveys a deeper message concerning newness as the central feature of personhood. In the Trinitarian perspective—in which the Lamb is eternally slaughtered and glorified—newness is both an achievement and a fundamental feature at the same time. It is an achievement, because personhood is the result (in the sense appropriate here) of the inner life of the Trinity, that is, its revelational reality. It is indirect self-revelation which leads to radical personhood, and it is direct self-revelation, the revelation of revelation, which produces apocalyptic personhood. Yet this personhood is one with a twofold feature of passion and glory. Through this personhood the persons of the Trinity become lively, as it were, their personhood articulate and expressed, and their personal relations genuinely mutual. It is not the case that any of these moments would have a chronological character; my description is merely a nonproportional approach to what is the ad intra reality of the Trinity, an approach achieved by the tools I have developed here. Yet even in this narrow perspective it is fairly clear that the fundamental unity and polarity of the divine is in fact an intricate and complex activity

21 It is important to note that Lentulov painted a number of similar canvasses which are in part in the possession of the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia. If one views the one entitled The New Jerusalem in the context of the other paintings with a similar subject matter (such as Saint Basil’s Cathedral of 1913), it is even more obvious that Lentulov’s imagination was strongly focused on the problem of possible visualizations of the “heavenly city” in our empirical world.

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entailing being, generation, and procession, an activity which can be conceived, even if inadequately, in the present perspective.22 The ad intra descriptions of the intrinsic revelation of the Trinity, that is to say, the creation, salvation, and fulfillment of the world, constitute the basic mode of our understanding of the inner life of intrinsic personhood. In this way, we nevertheless gain insight into a context in which personhood and newness are fundamentally connected. In the Trinity, personhood is absolute newness. Thus we can say that the divine is absolute newness both in its unity and plurality, in its self and persons, or, in its entire revelational life. Revelation is, in the last analysis, the revelation of newness. Radical revelation and revelation as revelation instantiate forms of newness, but newness as such imbues revelation. In fact, if revelation is not about newness, the word “revelation” loses its meaning even in the ordinary sense. In a theoretical sense, however, it must be clearly stated that newness is revelation and revelation is newness; that the structures of openness, freedom, and newness are the structures of revelation; and that revelation is meaningless if it is not about the realization of such a structure. This and only this fact is capable of explaining the newness we perceive in human personhood, in the birth of a child, or in secondary forms of newness, such as a new love, friendship, artistic achievement, or just a new day. We perceive newness “primarily” in the experience of particular instances, such as waking up to a new day. Already in this everyday experience a broader perspective opens up, the richness of the fact, which points to the reality of newness in our entire life. And the fundamental features of such experiences lead us to realize the meta-ontological importance of newness. But we would never be able to follow this path if it were not the genuinely primary fact according to which newness is above all and first of all the newness of revelation, the newness of revelational personhood, and the newness of the unity and plurality of the divine. We need to understand this always in the perspective of our experiences and mental activity, and especially in the framework of a philosophical theology. The latter is called radical in the sense that it connects the poles of the divine and the earthly and displays the overarching importance of their nonproportional correlation and interaction. We can never abandon the fundamental form of this interaction, namely, the role of the Bible, the tradition and the doctrines. Yet precisely by interpreting these forms in a philosophical theology we understand that our entire life is featured by the genuinely primary reality of the inner life of the Trinity, especially by the central role apocalyptic personhood plays in it.

22 I need to note in this context that the historical fact of Jerusalem in our time is theologically connected to the vision of the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation. However, to develop this theological significance, a separate chapter would be needed. At the same time, I have given the basis of the kind of explanation I prefer: “The Golgotha, the Resurrection, the emergence of the Church, secularization, modernity and Auschwitz, but also the reestablishing of the State of Israel, reveal features of God we need to understand better; most importantly we need to understand what revelation actually is, how revelation is realized, and what revelation discloses of God” (Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, p. 24).

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4. A Phenomenology of Disclosure Phenomenology in philosophy is like Cubism in painting:  it strives to show the underlying structures which define the prima facie level of reality, so that it determines, characterizes, and connects the typical forms of such structures. Phenomenology starts with a description, but not simply the description of prima facie data but rather their connections and arrangements as they appear for the observer. Since no such theory is capable of descriptive completeness without involving a description of the observer in question, phenomenology turns out to be the description of the relevant observer, the ego, or the subject in the given perspective. It turns out to be, in other words, the description of the perspective itself in which anything can appear as an object of description. It is the perspective in which phenomenology is interested, yet it never leaves behind either the subject or the prima facie details. The subject is the focus of the perspective, and the prima facie details are like windows opening to the perspective in their own ways. There may be an emphasis on the subject in phenomenology, as is the case in Edmund Husserl’s thought (especially in his middle period); or there can be an emphasis on the entire perspective in which anything as such can appear. This perspective may be called ontological or the perspective of Being, Sein, as in the case of Martin Heidegger. Or again, there can be an emphasis on the dualism between the subject and the object, the perspective and the details, as was formulated by Jean-Paul Sartre. A different emphasis is developed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty with respect to the underlying structure of reality in terms of an epiphenomenon which presupposes the material basis and defines the abstractions of the mind. Emmanuel Lévinas nevertheless offers a phenomenology in which not identity but difference is the central term and the analysis focuses on the importance of the “other,” the different; the prima facie world of experience is viewed in the perspective of an absolute and irreducible otherness. In a nutshell, these are the classical forms of phenomenology. As a further development, Jean-Luc Marion reinterprets the otherness in Lévinas in terms of an absolute giving: being is not conceived of in terms of a self-contained reality but rather as the result of the self-donation of the divine. The divine is not merely absolute otherness which cannot be reduced to the “same.” More fundamentally it is total self-donation which gives being to being. Being is thus an openness to that which is beyond being. It possesses a gift character. A gift nevertheless, even in its most saturated forms, needs the a priori structure of giving in terms of the giver, the receiver, and the given. If this structure is abolished—as some analyses of a saturated phenomenon suggest—the genuine reality of giving is insufficiently shown. Miklos Vetö’s thought, which I  analyzed above to some extent, belongs to the latter development with a characteristic change: it intends to enlarge metaphysics not only in the sense of making room for newness but also in the sense that he identifies an overarching structure in reality viewed from the perspective of otherness, namely the structure of the “good.” He uses the principle of bonum est diffusivum sui (“goodness is its own diffusion” or “the good tends to

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spread”23) as the lodestar of a reformed metaphysics. Thus, Vetö synthesizes Lévinas’s thought with points in Jean-Luc Marion’s understanding of God and being and adds the overall structure of traditional metaphysics, the structure of transcendental goodness. While Marion denies that traditional metaphysics is sustainable, Veto intends to renew metaphysics along the lines of the principle of diffusivum sui. Apocalyptic phenomenology is understood here as the discovery and elucidation of the underlying reality of revelation. I  have been pursuing this aim throughout the present book, but while the preliminary investigations were realized in a nonstandard philosophical theology of revelation, the sui generis description of disclosure calls for a more concretely defined approach, which is the approach of apocalyptic phenomenology. The subject matter of apocalyptic phenomenology is revelation in its fundamental sense as original openness. Its form, nevertheless, is a methodologically complex procedure which can be approached in two ways: first in a negative way which points out the difference between apocalyptic phenomenology and a number of other disciplines, such as ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, and anthropology; and second in a positive way which enlightens the very form of apocalyptic phenomenology as the disclosure of the principle of refusivum sui—a notion I shall explain below. As to the subject matter, the possibilities of description concern the conceptual and the historical fields. I  have already offered details of the first in various ways. In a fundamental sense, disclosure is the very context in which particular forms of disclosure and those of closure as well are positioned. Revelation is also re-velation (closure), but it is revelation in its absolute form which makes possible re-velation or closure.24 Opening is not being, but the active possibility of being, or rather the way in which being is becoming. It is openness in the original sense which makes possible any opening, and it is opening that opens up the concrete possibility of being. Opening may be understood chronologically, but more importantly it is the very process of opening itself. It is certainly not an ontological or an epistemological event, because what is ontological or epistemological already presupposes both openness as an original fact and the process of opening as the expounding of the original fact. Openness is a fact in a sense which goes beyond the average meaning of a fact as well as the scope of a rich fact I delineated above.25 A fundamental 23 The principle has been investigated in various studies which describe the origin and the influence of the notion. According to J. P. Éghaire (L’Axiome “Bonum est diffusivum sui” dans le néoplatonisme et le thomisme, Revue de l’Université d’Ottawa, 2, 1932, pp. 5–32) the principle originates in Plato’s notion of goodness and its influence on the demiurge; it has been used in Neo-Platonism, especially by Plotinus and, following this school, in the works of the early Christian theologians of Alexandria. Pseudo-Dionysius applies the principle in various ways which proved to be determining in the work of Thomas Aquinas. See, for instance, Summa theologiae, I, q 5 a 4, ad 2. 24 See above Chapter 4, section 5. 25 See Chapter 1, section 6.

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fact is that without which no other fact is possible. In some cosmological theories, the Big Bang counts as the fundamental fact which explains all the other facts in the universe. But since the Big Bang (or a series of Big Bangs) is an ontological occurrence, it presupposes being. The notion of opening, however, is more original than the notion of being. In a similar way, the structure of the logical field is such that a train of thoughts, an argument, or a certain composition of premises and conclusions can be put together. There is a matrix of these developments which joins together the logical steps so that they can lead to a conclusion. The fact of the logical field is a fundamental fact which explains the possibility of other logical procedures. The opening of openness, however, is not logical or cosmological, it is not epistemological or moral, it is not even anthropological, but an ur-fact which makes other facts and their relations possible. As I also mentioned, the inner structure of openness is such that it has form and content. Its infinity is such that it entails both the moment of openness and its concrete exemplifications. This double structure, nevertheless, turns out to be a threefold structure, because original openness and its concrete exemplifications are connected to one another by a network of appropriate relations where the network itself is the third defining moment of openness. Let me emphasize that this is not an abstract description, but a description which draws on the original disclosure, a description of apocalyptic phenomenology. As to the historical field, I have more to say about this below. I note here only that historical models are such that they describe fundamental moments which serve as a closer description of openness itself. Yet the historical character is something peculiar which needs to be better understood. What is historical belongs to a development, and a development is made possible by an underlying process of reality. This process, moreover, is such that it can lead to developments, occurrences, events, that is to say, to consistent sets of occurrences. But how is this consistency possible? It belongs to the “nature” of cosmological processes that they have a certain consistency which allows them to develop under given circumstances and within certain limits in accordance with the interpretation of the second law of thermodynamics. As to the historical process, we may think of mere accidents or at least a chain of actions which have certain consequences. Actions, as we tend to believe, have consequences. Yet history is not merely a development of haphazard events but rather a consistent structure which has a meaning. We need to be cautious about this point: many historical events seem to be accidental. To develop a theory which claims an overall meaning of history has more than one danger. It does not only legitimize immorality, abuse, or general evil, but encourages ideologies which try to legitimize themselves by means of their alleged meaningfulness. Yet we have already seen that certain historical developments—such as the development of the notion of religion, person, or revelation—show in fact meaningfulness and presuppose an underlying consistency of their emergence. One finds it difficult to accept that the meaning of a person as possessing fundamental dignity is just an accidental development, even if this insight emerged slowly throughout the centuries and its clear formula was given first by Kant. Or the notion of revelation as self-revelation emerged again only gradually, yet in the perspective of our

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understanding, revelation could have been recognized as self-revelation in clear terms much earlier; because it belongs to the notion of revelation that it is essentially self-revelation, and it belongs to the notion of self-revelation that it points to radical revelation. There is thus a consistency in historical developments which needs to be recognized without eliminating the fact and possibility of historical error and delusion. It seems, however, that beyond error and delusion there is an underlying consistency in historical processes which helps the emergence of an intelligent structure either in a partial or an overall sense. This structure again may be compared to the structure Cubist painting wanted to discover, or to the drive of the modern and contemporary painting to understand the nature of reality by tackling the role light plays in all appearances, such as it is the case in the paintings of J. M. W. Turner. If, for instance, we look at Turner’s Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Night of 1835,26 we see that the composition of seemingly chaotic and accidental details (such as the ships and the light of the burning coal on the right side of the painting) are framed by the radiation of the setting sun in such a way that the two poles—the accidental heap of details and the sun in the center of the painting—create a wellorganized unity, a meaning. This meaning is aesthetic. While we could not express it in plain terms, it shows how accidental and chaotic details can be organized into a meaningful unity, a process we see in historical contexts as well. Just as the sight of the harbor needs the eye of the artist so that the organized unity could be expressed in a magical painting, so historical accidents, the variety of contradictory traditions, the chaos of occurrences call for an historical eye that recognizes meaning and is capable of organizing them into a meaningful unity. In the context of apocalyptic phenomenology, we attempt to reach a similarly organized, even if not artistically or historically organized, understanding. Apocalyptic phenomenology is not ontology, metaphysics, anthropology, or epistemology. Ontology takes it for granted that there is being. Being, however, is possible, and an ontology cannot properly answer the question of how being is possible. Apocalyptic phenomenology defines openness as the very possibility of being. Metaphysics, on the other hand, enlarges ontology “beyond the physical” and it creates, in the last analysis, a theistic ontology, as was already the case in Aristotle’s work. If we nevertheless understand metaphysics as general metaphysics, that is, the theory of the fundamental forms of being and logically possible relations, then the question is raised as to how the variety of being is given or how the logical field with its characteristic consistency emerges. Metaphysics in the specific sense takes it for granted that a certain understanding of the divine lies behind ontology. Yet this divine is either cosmo-theologically defined or it is defined onto-theologically in Heidegger’s sense. Cosmo-theology, as I  have shown, understands the divine in terms of the astronomical experience, based on the faculty of vision, which was traditionally understood theologically, namely, so that astronomical entities were supposed to be divine beings and their overall

26 In the possession of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, United States.

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movements and relations influenced the notion of the divine even in monotheistic conceptions. Heidegger’s onto-theology is the conceptual counterpart of cosmo-theology: the divine in onto-theology is understood on the basis of particular beings and the original openness of the divine is not properly conceived. Metaphysics in the general sense does not even raise the problem of understanding being; it tries to understand beings and their relations on a logical basis. In this way, metaphysics is left with dogmatic conceptions of being, beings, and the logical field. Apocalyptic phenomenology, nevertheless, points out the source of being in the sense of the opening of openness, that is to say, as revelation. Apocalyptic phenomenology is not anthropology either. First, in all anthropology we face the problem of the unity of human persons, as I have pointed out. Without solving this problem, that is to say, without identifying personhood as the center of anthropology, we cannot overcome the problem of dualism. Second, anthropology takes it for granted that human beings are conceivable in themselves. The notion of a self-transcendence as the fundamental feature of human beings certainly entails a notion of openness, for it is openness that makes possible human self-transcendence. But human beings are not merely open to something more than they are. Rather, they originate in something more than they are, and this openness is not grasped in anthropology. Anthropology may consider human beings as persons, and in this case the personal feature is open to a broader understanding. However, anthropology views human persons as bound to a given bio-physical structure and thereby attributes a solidness to human persons which seems to be unrelated to the core meaning of personhood. A  dogmatic understanding of human personhood as a fixed system with an unchangeable nature is again far from the importance of personhood. As I have showed, human personhood cannot be properly understood if not in the perspective of absolute personhood, that is to say, in the Trinitarian perspective. It is not a central question of anthropology that human beings exist on a given bio-physical basis, for even a deceased person is a person and even a hermaphrodite is a person. Personhood is fundamentally the core expression of unity in plurality and only in the perspective of the absolute unity and plurality is it possible to conceive human personhood properly. Apocalyptic phenomenology offers this perspective with respect to the nonproportional understanding of the inner life of the Trinity as it is related to ad extra reality. It offers the notion of revelation as the perspective in which human personhood can be conceived. This perspective contains the intricate Trinitarian relations, in which personhood is born, and defines the unity and plurality ad intra and ad extra at the same time. It is again in the perspective of apocalyptic phenomenology that the problem of the sexes may receive an appropriate description. The activity of apocalyptic personhood, which is the focal event of the divine, entails its reception or participation in it. This participation is what constitutes the reality of the feminine, while the original activity is formed as the masculine principle. Yet they are so defined merely in their interaction and cooperation. While these principles are certainly fundamental, they originate in the opening of openness as the essential source of the Trinitarian complexity. For even in the reality of the Trinity, the

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principle of the feminine is entailed as the dimension of reception or passivity, and even in this realm the activity can be seen as the arch-form of masculinity.27 Personhood, nevertheless, entails both principles in a more or less close connection, and this connection may be formed in such a way that neither principle is emphasized. Personhood is the expression of freedom and this freedom entails, and yet does not necessarily display, the well-defined poles of activity and passivity, masculinity and femininity. We find the other sex attractive in its relationship to its complementary principle, and even if there is a physical, mental, aesthetic, and erotic beauty in the other sex, this attraction is merely an aspect of the original attraction of personhood. It is the freedom of personhood that becomes attractive in an overall sense, and its partial expression in the form of a sexual identity is an important yet not overall dimension of personhood. Personhood entails the newborn, the child, and the old in which the sexual dimension is unformed or dissolved. Even on this scale it is obvious that personhood contains, but is not identical with, sexuality, and that sexuality expresses just an aspect of the original richness of personhood. Thus, I  do not support theories, often in the form of a “sophiology,” which attempt to find the principle of femininity in one of the Trinitarian persons, such as the Holy Spirit. Such an approach would annul the philosophical content of the doctrine of the bodily assumption of the Virgin Mary into the community (while not into the inner life properly speaking) of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Assumption (celebrated on August 15 in Catholic countries throughout the world) has a significant philosophical and theological message as to the relationship between the ad intra and ad extra dimensions of the Trinity. This message concerns the very possibility of created reality becoming partaker—yet not an intrinsic moment—in the Trinity. The Assumption reveals the intricate connection between the created and the non-created with respect to the salvation, indeed, the rescue, of the created order that tends to destroy itself as a consequence of evil. In this connection, the created order receives the possibility to renew itself by the intervention of the Trinity in such a way that the inner life of the Trinity is shared with the created order in a nonproportional sense. This connection makes it possible that the created order, while naturally maintaining its createdness, may still share the life of the divine. Thus, the presence of the feminine principle in Trinitarian reality is better conceived as the feature of passivity that intrinsically imbues the revelational life of the godhead. This passivity makes the reality of the Assumption possible so that

27 In Gen. 1:27 we read: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” There is a heated debate about the question if “the image of God” (“shadow,” ‫ )צֶלֶם‬involves “male and female.” Nevertheless, it seems that at least in a secondary sense the image entails femininity; thus it belongs to God to have a primordial form of the masculine and the feminine, a philosophical interpretation of which I offer above. Cf. István Cselényi, The Maternal Face of God? Explorations in Catholic Sophiology, foreword by Michael Martin (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2017).

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participation may be realized in which the nonproportional relationship between the created and the non-created is thoroughly maintained. The principle of femininity is represented by the doctrine of the Assumption but, in the ad intra dimension, it is better seen as the feature of passivity and thus an intrinsic constituent. In this sense, the feminine is always a feature of the Trinity and it is possible to highlight its role in all Trinitarian persons and their relations to one another. Even the Father has this feature in the form of a merciful receiving back of “the prodigal son,” for instance, as the Son possesses this feature when he reveals his suffering on the Mount of Olives, or as the Spirit shows this feature when he embraces and connects the disciples into the family of Church as is described in Acts 2:1–4. Finally, apocalyptic phenomenology is not epistemology. It does not offer a systematic description of the organs and the process of perception and the formation of mental units. It does not offer an explanation of how mental units are connected to general ideas or where these ideas originate. It does not focus on the problems of intentionality. Rather, apocalyptic phenomenology asks about the very possibility of personhood in itself and in its overall perspective. It asks how it is possible that we find ourselves already in the circle of ad intra and ad extra dimensions, and how we understand the relationship between the two. Again it is obvious that apocalyptic phenomenology is interested in the ultimate possibility of knowledge and less interested in perceptual and mental mechanisms. Because whatever these mechanisms are, however we construe their workings, we do not yet understand how understanding at all is possible. We do not yet see what understanding is ultimately. Apocalyptic phenomenology leads us to the notion of revelation in this respect as well, so that the source of understanding may be defined. A possible way is in fact the one I already proposed: revelation entails its reception, and inasmuch as revelation is not only original but intellectual as well, there is an intellectual dimension which entails an intellectual reception. Since revelation is not just a process originating in an absolute source and ending in a final reception, but rather there is a fundamental complementarity, mutuality, and cooperation in revelation both ad extra and ad intra, intellectual activity and passivity are present on every level of revelation, that is to say, on the level of human persons as well. Empirical beliefs and mental organizations, experience and evaluation, data processing and conclusions are all embedded in the intricate structures of communication between personhood and unity, person and person, a communication fundamentally defining any kind of knowledge. It is only in this way that the overall mental structures can be built, or that languages can be developed as the articulate means of communication. In communication, there is fundamental freedom, and just as in the formation of our thoughts, so this freedom is clearly expressed also in the historical and cultural developments of language formation. This freedom explains the breathtaking variety of living and dead languages or the continuous change of an existing language in vocabulary, syntax, and intonation. This process may be called auto-poetic, yet there is freedom behind all such changes, precisely the freedom of persons. Just as the realization of persons, there is an original language of the Trinity, a language of pure and absolute freedom as the form of communication

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between the persons in their unity. This unheard language is the primary source of all languages, including the “tongues of men and of angels” (1 Cor. 13:1) and the innumerable human languages of the past, the present, and the future. This language cannot be expressed by any empirical language of the present, past, or future, and yet there are obviously languages with a specific role in the expression of the unheard language of revelation to persons other than the divine ones. Hebrew and Greek are clearly languages of a capacity of expressing revelational contents. Perhaps, some Germanic languages have helped us see further some hidden dimensions of revelational contents, as we have seen, for instance, with respect to the ingenious translation of “revelatio” as “Offenbarung.”28 It is, nevertheless, not my intention to develop a philosophy of language in the framework of the philosophy of revelation in this context. So much may be, however, recognized, that certain positive languages play a unique role in our understanding of revelation.

5. The Principle of Refusivum Sui The ultimate source of understanding of revelation can be found in what I call the principle of refusivum sui. Bonum est refusivum sui means: “Goodness is such that it withdraws or denies itself.” First, it appears that the dictum is merely the negative counterpart, perhaps even a playful one, of the other saying, Neo-Platonic in origin, which I already quoted above: bonum est diffusivum sui—“goodness tends to spread” or “goodness is self-sharing.” However, there is a much richer content of the principle of refusivum which I will explain in what follows. Inasmuch as goodness is self-sharing, reality participates in goodness:  every entity on any level of reality receives an appropriate share of goodness sufficient for its being. This principle is understood as characteristic of the transcendental properties of God: God’s being is disproportionally greater than the being of other beings, and yet his goodness, the expression of divine love, is proportionally and systematically shared with all levels of reality. Taken in itself, the principle describes the nature of goodness which cannot be undivided, because it is such that it gives itself. However, there is a possibility to misunderstand this important thought. It is especially the optical simile, the radiation of the sun, which may trigger a misinterpretation even in the form of a theory of causality. The sun diffuses itself, as it were, in the form of light with a physical necessity. Yet this simile is of a cosmotheological origin and this fact in itself may make us cautious. Is there any natural necessity in goodness comparable to the natural radiation of the sun? The answer is indeed, as we saw above, the following:  there is no physical or logical necessity in goodness.29 If goodness is understood as a transcendental property of the

28 Cf. Chapter 3, section 2. 29 Cf. Chapter 1, section 9.

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divine, as a centrally important feature, then it is not enough to say that there is no necessity in goodness. We must say that there is absolute freedom in goodness. Its self-sharing is the result of freedom. Goodness, as it were, freely decides to share itself. Yet it is at this point that we may become suspicious about the consistency of this important recognition concerning the nature of goodness. For if it belongs to the freedom of goodness to share itself, then it must be equally central to goodness not to share itself. Goodness is free self-sharing, which entails that it is equally free to remain unshared. Since goodness belongs to the core of the divine, its freedom is such that it is just as much self-sharing as it is non-self-sharing or self-denying. If goodness is necessary self-sharing, how can we understand the existence of evil, especially horrendous and historic evil?30 If goodness is mechanically realized self-donation, evil remains not only inexplicable but even nonexistent. According to this view, the mechanical outpouring of good does not only surpasses evil but makes it an illusion. Since however evil is undeniable reality, a goodness which renders evil an illusion proves to be an illusion itself. Thus, to save goodness from being an illusion it seems important to introduce the notion of refusivum. Bonum est refusivum sui—“Goodness is such that it withdraws itself ”—means two things at the same time. It refers to the self-withdrawal (refundo) of the good, but it also means the compensation or reparation (also refundo) of the loss of the good realized by goodness itself.31 Bonum est refusivum sui thus has a double meaning which expresses the two important aspects of goodness with respect to self-sharing. While the divine is self-sharing, which is communicated in a peculiar form in the notion of kenosis, it is also self-withdrawing. Self-withdrawal and self-donation are two sides of the same coin, but here it is not a coin that is in the focus but absolute freedom. If there were a symmetrical balance between selfwithdrawal and self-donation in goodness, reality would destroy itself in the first place; in an eternal fight no solid structure could emerge. If self-donation were the stronger party, self-withdrawal would disappear and the existence of evil would remain again without an explanation. There is nevertheless the third possibility, the one we just saw: refusivum sui can be understood not only as self-withdrawal, but also as compensation, that is, an appropriate answer given to a challenge. The divine freely realizes self-withdrawal so that the freedom of its creatures may flourish, but the consequence of this

30 For the notion of historic evil, see Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, p. 6. 31 The basic meaning of “refundo” is to pour back, to pour out, cause to overflow, and so on in either the literal or the figurative sense. The later meaning of “refund” or “compensate” goes back to the meaning of “restore” inherent in the basic meanings. The specific meaning of “restore justice” appears in Ambrosius: “per cujus oboedientiam humani generis culpa deleta, refusa iustitia est” (By whose obedience the sin of the human race was abolished and justice restored). See Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary, pp. 1548-49. Cf. Ambrosius:  Apologia Prophetae David ad Theodosium Augustum, 17, § 81; my translation. The deverbal adjectives “diffusivum” and “refusivum” are formed from the perfect passive participle stem of the verbs.

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freedom is always the emergence of the power of evil together with all the indescribable sufferings caused by it. However, it follows from goodness that it does not let evil overcome the good. It suffers evil, in view of freedom, and it compensates it, again because of freedom. Reparation or compensation can be of several kinds, but we should not confine its scope to our average experience. Just as other essential features, reparation belongs to the divine. Reparation is realized already ad intra in a sense conceivable here. That is what the description of the Heavenly Jerusalem teaches us with the slaughtered-yet-victorious-lamb in its center. Certainly, goodness would be meaningless without reparation in the empirical sense. For instance, if injustice was not compensated in one’s life in an appropriate though generally non-manifest way, we would not accept it as a morally justifiable state of affairs. It is an unavoidable presupposition of our apocalyptic phenomenology, that “the Good must always have defeated and must always defeat the evil.”32 Yet the precise way of this victory is not a natural balancing or some kind of retaliation, but the complex, sensitive, sophisticated and many-formed reality of refusivum in both of its meanings: as a kenotic withdrawal which makes evil possible, and as an eternal compensation which ensures the fullness of goodness—“iustitia refusa,” as Ambrosius wrote—in view of the destruction caused by the evil. It is in the reality of refusivum that epistemology originates. As I said, there is no real epistemology in apocalyptic phenomenology, but there is a grasp of the principal importance of how revelation is realized. Revelation is realized due to the opening of openness; but already in this opening a form of refusivum appears, because freedom emerges and thus the possibility of the misuse of freedom, that is, the reality of evil, emerges as well. Refusivum or the unity of free withdrawal and free self-donation is an original feature of the inner life of the Trinity in the sense appropriate here. In human communication, there is a form of refusivum which may help the understanding:  we give and receive, give again and receive again, and in this play of mutuality, in the intricate network of questions and answers, in the periodical tide of challenge and answer the flow of communication is realized. The motive of refusivum is part and parcel of this process in an original form. In view of created freedom, however, refusivum develops a complex form in which goodness is able to prevail so that it gives room to freedom, even to the misuse of freedom. The original flexibility of refusivum is realized in a complex form in one’s life as well as in the life of a community and even in the life of history.33 An understanding is the understanding of the different on the basis of the same in their overarching and integrated unity. If the divine itself is refusivum sui, it only means that it freely allows the emergence of freedom and thus it allows the appearance of difference and even misuse. It shares its freedom freely and entirely

32 Plato, Epinomis 988e. Cf. Plato, The Complete Works, p. 1630. 33 This latter is shown, for instance, in the fact that the evil of Auschwitz led to the emergence of various compensations, such as the deep reflections on its significance in history, in one’s life, and in the life of humanity as well. See Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, p. 13.

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already in the ad intra realm; and it does the same in the ad extra realm as well in the form of the freedom for creation. Yet if evil overcomes the good, if denial overwhelms assertion, if the negative overthrows the positive, no consistency can be maintained and thus there would not be reality. If there is reality, life, thinking, if there is some consistency in reality, then this is due to the operation expressed in the other meaning of the refusivum, namely, in the meaning of compensation or reparation. Compensation is first the compensation of self-donation in the ad intra dimension. Second, it is compensation of the misuse of freedom in the ad extra dimension. Third, it is about an overall reparation of the loss suffered as a consequence of negation, misuse, or denial in such a way that the result is a fulfillment, a completion, that is to say, radical newness. This is how we can understand the importance of newness in reality: already in the ad intra realm, newness is the fulfillment of the inner dynamics of selfwithdrawal and self-donation. In the ad extra realm, where misuse becomes the active possibility of freedom, the economic process of salvation and fulfillment, that is to say, the process leading to the appearance of the New Jerusalem, reveals that without this ultimate newness no newness would be possible, and thus this ultimate newness defines the possibility of the salvation process, its history and meaning. We should also see that the New Jerusalem exists in the heaven before it descends to the earth. That is to say, its newness is already fulfilled in the ad intra realm so that it can be realized ad extra. The slaughtered-yet-victorious-lamb, the Lamb of God murdered “from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8),34 is victorious from the same beginning, which ensures the eternally actual inner renewal of the divine and also the ad extra renewal of the creation. In the present context, it is the apocalyptic personhood that reveals the overall importance of newness. In an apocalyptic phenomenology, we recognize this importance and the importance of all the models in which apocalyptic personhood can be understood.

6. Models of Disclosure Apocalyptic phenomenology describes not only the essential moments of renewal, but also its historical forms. The question whether history has a meaning does not concern me here. I have already shown that in some respects it certainly has a meaning, at least meaningful developments in given periods. To say that “[t]he world is still as it was in the time of Alaric” reveals a certain blindness to some of the most important developments I discussed above.35 Even if this blindness may 34 Cf. Chapter 5, footnote 46. 35 Karl Löwith, Meaning in History (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1949), p. 191. According to Löwith, “The problem of history as a whole is unanswerable within its own perspective. Historical processes as such do not bear the least evidence of a comprehensive and ultimate meaning. History as such has no outcome. There never has been and never will be an immanent solution of the problem of history, for man’s historical experience is one of steady failure. Christianity, too, as an historical world religion, is a complete

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be understood as caused by the incredible destruction of wars, we still can insist that the very development of the notion of revelation throughout the centuries, especially its consistent evolution into the notion of self-revelation, points out at least the possibility of a tentative understanding of the meaning of some aspects of history. Apocalyptic personhood is the result of such a development, since it is rooted in the earliest sources of the biblical traditions and it influenced and even determined the emergence of an understanding of personhood in the context of revelation. Whether we can conceive this process as a linear one pointing to an historical fulfillment is more than doubtful. Yet in the view of the intricate workings of the principle of refusivum we may still maintain that, in certain contexts, some developments are meaningful. While these developments collapse into recession and decline, they can still exist and be analyzed. They are similar to the development in art. In art history, we witness periods of flourishing and periods of decline, periods determined by the genius of creative artists, and periods satisfied merely with imitation and epigonism. Yet time and again there appear personalities that offer an interpretation of previous developments and add their work to it, and thus they continue the development and lead it to its fulfillment.36 An historical typology of apocalyptic personhood, which recognizes a certain development, deepening, articulation, and fulfillment in certain periods, focuses on important actors that served as models for subsequent centuries. Apocalyptic personhood, as I attempted to show, is rooted in the sources of Christianity. These sources are such that they disclose a pattern which proves to be historically effective. Thus, to take the most obvious example, the figure of Christ has shaped the entire life of Christian generations throughout two millennia, and if it is indeed difficult to tell the difference between an Alaric and a Stalin, one still can see that the notion of personhood in modernity could not have emerged without the

failure. The world is still as it was in the time of Alaric; only our means of oppression and destruction (as well as of reconstruction) are considerably improved and are adorned with hypocrisy” (p. 191). Here Löwith shows the psychological and intellectual consequences of the Second World War. Yet he also betrays that he is not aware of the freedom of the divine to unite kenotic withdrawal and accomplishing goodness. We may say with William Blake that to understand reality forgiveness (of personal or even historic crimes) is a presupposition. 36 Among a number of possible examples, Shakespeare’s The Tempest offers the clear recognition of this important principle of history. Prospero loses its empire because of a betrayal (bonum est refusivum sui, phase 1). Yet he is able to build a reparatory structure on a remote island so that he will also be able not only to restore justice but even go beyond the earlier state of affairs and realize the higher synthesis in the unity of “Milan” and “Naples,” the two opposing realms of reality (bonum est refusivum sui, phase 2). Prospero reaches the synthesis by his exceptional powers of which “marriage” is a symbol. Prospero’s guiding principle is “the rarer action” which lies “in virtue than in vengeance.” “Virtue” points here to a restoration far more elevated than anything earlier; evil, thus, proves to be the real motivation for a higher good. Cf. William Shakespeare, The Tempest, ed. Burton Raffel, The Annotated Shakespeare (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 116.

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complicated synergy of various receptions of this figure, the face of Christ as it were. Even if there has always been and there will always be a great variety of misunderstanding, misuse or exploitation of the central importance of personhood, this personhood still burns itself into the soul of humanity and triggers changes which lead to the emergence of new recognitions, new realization, new fulfillment of genuine newness. Hans Urs von Balthasar already developed an historical typology of eschatological personhood in the three volumes of Apokalypse der deutschen Seele. Studien zu einer Lehre von letzten Haltungen. In this exceptionally rich study of important figures in German Enlightenment and Romanticism, philosophy, history, and literature, von Balthasar offers complex analyses of individual authors. While these analyses explore the views of important literary figures, the eschatological horizon are not always obvious. When he speaks of “ultimate attitudes” (letzte Haltungen), von Balthasar refers to the understanding of these authors from Lessing through Goethe to Husserl and Heidegger of the coincidence of their individual, artistic, or philosophical fulfillment with the objective historical fulfillment or apocalypse. The fundamental and common feature of these authors is precisely the ultimate seriousness with which they considered their task: indeed, they believed that in their work history is fulfilled, God realizes absoluteness, and their individual person is seamlessly integrated into this process. Nowhere in known history has such a sequence of authors appeared with a similar and fundamental conviction of their historical and eschatological role. As we saw, William Blake’s figure, while he professed similar views, remained isolated and virtually unknown in then contemporary English literature. In German culture, however, these authors formed a common language and delineated a more or less common problematic which, as von Balthasar suggests, can be uniformly described in terms of “the apocalypse of the German soul.” It must be mentioned that the original publication of this work of von Balthasar occurred just some years before the apocalyptic collapse of the Third Reich—indeed an historical-political realization of all the problems von Balthasar identified in his analyses. The central problem of these authors, as von Balthasar recognizes, is their specific theology in which they claim an immediate and unusual knowledge of divine reality or reality in general. Before Nietzsche, German apocalypse is fundamentally theistic while it is also, as von Balthasar uses the expression, “Gnostic.” With Nietzsche we witness an atheistic turn and during the twentieth century German eschatology develops a different kind of understanding in which reality is ultimately disclosed and grasped by an appropriate methodology, as in the phenomenology of Husserl. Heidegger’s eschatology is again of a different kind, because Being (Sein and Seyn) goes beyond the ontological and explores the ultimate sources of being. The dramatic tone of some of Heidegger’s writings confirms the verifiability of the analyses of von Balthasar and allows, even if in specific senses, the application of the label of eschatology. As to the question of our intellectual possibilities with respect to these exceptional authors, my approach is slightly different from those who speak about a “Gnostic return.” As noted in the introduction to this work, the historical bases of

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such a qualification may appear useful. However, it may be more important that, in the perspective of a radical philosophical theology of revelation, we recognize and acknowledge the exceptional results these authors achieved in a number of cases. It must be a different task to analyze the importance of these authors in the wider context of a philosophy of revelation; some of their important insights I have already applied in this volume. As a principle, nevertheless, let me refer to the papal encyclical Aeterni patris of 1879. As Pope Leo XIII writes, it is of a central importance for Christian authors to recognize and acknowledge the truths discovered by “pagan” authors and use them in the development of Christian teachings. In a similar way, the most important task with respect to these exceptional authors is not the application of an historical pattern on their thought but rather to discover and acknowledge the truths they were able to express. Here is the most important passage from the encyclical: Hence it is that certain truths which were either divinely proposed for belief, or were bound by the closest chains to the doctrine of faith, were discovered by pagan sages with nothing but their natural reason to guide them, were demonstrated and proved by becoming arguments. For, as the Apostle says, the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: his eternal power also and divinity; and the Gentiles who have not the Law show, nevertheless, the work of the Law written in their hearts. But it is most fitting to turn these truths, which have been discovered by the pagan sages even, to the use and purposes of revealed doctrine, in order to show that both human wisdom and the very testimony of our adversaries serve to support the Christian faith—a method which is not of recent introduction, but of established use, and has often been adopted by the holy Fathers of the Church.37

It is then not only possible but even advisable to work out the ways in which some truths may be turned to the use and purposes of revelation. That is to say, to offer a detailed description of the main results of apocalyptic personhood is a genuine task to accomplish. For this, a separate volume would be needed, a volume delineating the important personalities, real or imagined, that added to the development of apocalyptic personhood. It would be indeed a challenging task to offer such an overview which describes the very sources of personhood beginning with the figure of Socrates, Plotinus and Marcus Aurelius; and continuing through such important personalities as St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Abelard and Thomas Aquinas; Petrarca, Dante, Machiavelli, and Montaigne; Descartes, Bossuet, and Fénelon; Shakespeare and Cervantes; Fichte and Schelling; Blake, Byron, and Shelley; Goethe, Schiller, and Hölderlin; Nietzsche and Wagner; Heidegger, Tillich, and Jaspers; or Thomas Mann and James Joyce; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, William James, or A.  N. Whitehead; or again Wittgenstein and

37 Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, § 4.

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Lévinas. This list could be continued by adding a number of other important names of influential theologians, philosophers, and artists of music, architecture, sculpture, or painting. In the framework of the present work, nevertheless, let me focus on just a few examples in order to show the possibility of such an historical synopsis.38 Thus, in what follows I shall analyze four personalities that I consider especially important on this historical trajectory:  Augustine, Pascal, Goethe, and Lévinas. These figures offer characteristic models of apocalyptic personhood in their personality and work. They show an accumulation of insights which determined important developments so that, after a certain period of heated debates about the concrete form and content of their contribution, they emerged as models of understanding personhood in an apocalyptic sense, that is to say in the perspective of radical revelation. Radical revelation is expressed in apocalyptic personhood; and this expression has its historical reflection, a reflection still continuing in our age. a. Augustine’s Confessional Apocalypse Like many of the greatest authors in history, Augustine created his own genre of communication. This genre is usually termed confessions. There is an inner development of this form in the work of Augustine which leads from his early soliloquy to mature forms of confession beyond his work entitled Confessionum libri tredecim. Many of Augustine’s works were presented partially or entirely as a form of soliloquy and confession. “Soliloquy” comes from one of the first books by Augustine entitled Soliloquia. The word could be translated as “monologue,” and the Latin expression of soliloquia may have been indeed a translation of the late Greek word monologos. Yet the content of soliloquy is not a monologue, but rather a dialogue, an inner dialogue between the author and his own reason, and later between the author and God. Augustine’s soliloquy has its Hellenistic forerunners. In many ways, he follows the Stoic and Platonic dialogue form in his early writings. Among these dialogues we find Plato’s texts, such as the Republic, a text composed in the first-person singular as a narrative of the recollection of an earlier dialogue. Plato’s Apology is a Socratic monologue. In the same tradition we find a number of similar works, such as, for instance, Marcus Aurelius’s Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν, most often translated as “Meditations,” while the meaning of the Greek title is “Things Addressed to Himself,” that is to say, a monologue. The work directly influential in Augustine’s development of the confessional form was especially Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations, and he knew some

38 In a different work allowing for more detail, such as the historical work on apocalyptic personhood (see Appendix IV), there will be more space to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of von Balthasar’s approach as well as a more inclusive analysis of various models from the history of culture, with a special emphasis on the works of some of the authors listed.

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unidentified Platonic texts, probably dialogues as well.39 As Brian Stock has shown, there were four factors in the formation of Augustine’s confessional genre: Socratic interrogation, Stoic emphasis on self-control, teaching by correspondence, and Neoplatonic methods of mental elevation. Augustine, nevertheless, interpreted and further developed these traditions in such a way that his earlier Platonic dialogue form changed into a continuous dialogue with God, a meditative prayer or a praying meditation expressed in written form. Such a confession defines the most important works of Augustine, as, for instance, Confessions, The City of God, or On the Trinity. In these and similar works, the meditative prayer dominates the main line of thought, while it also leaves room for individual descriptions, recollections, and analysis.40 The peculiar characteristic of Augustine’s confession is his direct personal involvement in the dialogue. Many of the Hellenistic dialogues I mentioned are descriptive and show a certain reservation on the side of their authors concerning their audience. In Augustine’s writings, the author is directly present in the text, revealing not merely the details of the daily life of the saint, but more importantly the intricate elements of the formation of his thinking. Augustine is engaged in his writings with all his personality, and this personality is fully formed by God, as Augustine sees it, and is a formation which Augustine recognizes as the most important factor in his entire life before and after his conversion. The author sees his writings as the work of divine mercy. Without God’s grace he would have never been able to produce such writings. It is not only a certain openness to God we witness in these writings, but rather the conviction of the author that his writing is effected by the grace of God. At the same time, Augustine never appears to deem that he gains any merit in the production of his writings. His entire way of speaking entails that it is the author, Augustine himself, who speaks in the writings, and yet in a higher sense these writings, just as the author’s life, are God’s gift. There are many passages we could quote to illuminate this point, and here I will offer just a short passage from the Confessions: Let me know thee, O Lord, who knowest me: let me know thee as I am known of thee. O thou the Virtue of my soul, make thy entrance into it, and so fit it for thyself, that thou mayest have and hold it without spot or wrinkle. This is my hope, and therefore do I now rejoice, when I rejoice healthfully. As for other things of this life, they deserve so much the less to be lamented, by how much the more we do lament them: and again, so much the more to be lamented, by how much the less we do lament them. For behold, thou hast loved truth, and he that doth

39 See Brian Stock, Augustine’s Inner Dialogue:  The Philosophical Soliloquy in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 24–87. 40 Stock, Augustine’s Inner Dialogue. The author interprets the confessional form as an output of the spiritual exercise form of writing, characteristic of Hellenism and analyzed especially by Pierre Hadot. In Augustine’s case, nevertheless, the confessional form goes beyond the spiritual exercise and grows into a completely new literary genre.

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it, Cometh to the light. This will I do before thee in the confession of my heart; and in my writings before many witnesses.41

Augustine’s self-awareness is deeply imbued by the faith that God directs his life, that he is illuminated and can be illuminated even more, that God enters his soul and makes it “without spot or wrinkle,” and that it is the light of God that comes to the fore in his confessions. The very possibility of such awareness is undoubtedly the underlying understanding of the importance of personhood that is displayed in the writings of Augustine in a more intense way than in other authors we know from this age. The argument of cogito ergo sum, which we often identify as the central teaching of René Descartes, goes back to the philosophy of Hellenism, and directly to the thought of Augustine. Augustine repeatedly emphasizes the importance of the certitude of his own being; and he needs this certitude in order that the human pole as the receiver of divine grace may be safeguarded.42 These two features belong together: on the one hand, the well-defined being of the subject; on the other hand, the correspondingly well-defined being of God in his relation to the subject. Augustine’s formula has its importance in this context: God is “higher than my highest and more inward than my innermost self.”43 It would be difficult to decide whether it is Augustine’s notion of the self that defines his understanding of God, or rather it is his understanding of God that defines his notion of the self. The two factors belong together and specify each other in such a way that a revolutionary new understanding of human personhood comes to the fore. This personhood is defined precisely by its direct relationship to God; by its radical openness to God. It is in this perspective that the theological understanding of Augustine can be positioned with respect to his understanding of the Trinity and his interpretation of grace.44 When Augustine insists on the overwhelming importance of grace in the life of the Christian, he puts equal emphasis on the ontological openness of persons to grace. While original sin destroyed this openness in a certain sense, it did not destroy it so that God’s absolute intervention would become impossible. Thus, the openness of personhood to God is maintained. This openness, however, is the work of grace, and grace is what the life, death, and resurrection of Christ opened up for the world. In other words, the strong emphasis on the sinfulness of human beings goes hand in hand with the

41 Augustine, Confessions, X, 2, 2.  The translation of Confessions here is that of William Watts, from the Loeb Classical Library, 27 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). 42 For the si enim fallor, sum (if I doubt, I am) type of argument, see Stock, Augustine’s Inner Dialogue, p. 90. 43 “Interior intimo meo et superior summo meo,” Augustine, Confessions, III, 6, 11. The translation is from the Cathechism of the Catholic Church for the United States of America, 2nd ed. (Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), § 300, p. 79. 44 For both problems, see Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, p. 166.

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equally strong emphasis on the omnipotence of divine grace and the opening of the self to grace as the result of grace itself. Augustine’s confessional form is closely connected to his understanding of God, human being, and grace. Grace is the result of salvation and its indwelling the Christian is the only possibility of entering divine life. This possibility is realized in conversion, prayer, good conduct of life and, unsurprisingly, also in the confessions of the author. The author himself is the living proof of the workings of divine grace. Augustine indeed meant to convince his readers not only of particular opinions or dogmas, but also of the fact that divine grace is effective in his writings. He himself is the example of human personhood being radically open to the divine, as the result of grace, and of the divine presence fulfilling this openness. The notion of apocalyptic personhood receives thus a concrete meaning in the work of Augustine. He displays this personhood especially in his understanding that human beings are ontologically open to God.45 God can intervene into the life even of the wicked, and through his angels or in a direct way God decides the salvation or damnation of a human being. Human beings are directly connected to God and their free will is the realization of this immediate relationship.46 The most important point in Augustine’s arguments concerning grace is God’s immediate presence to human beings. This presence can be one-sided, as in the case of the wicked, but it can be mutually recognized, as in the case of the saints. Human personhood is thus conceived as a moment of this presence, for even the wicked can be turned around or left to their own will by God. Free will is positioned in the context of grace. As against the Pelagians, Augustine emphasizes both the existence of free will and the overwhelming power of God’s grace. God’s grace is absolute and thus it does not destroy free will. Free will receives its clear contours only in the framework of God’s overall power. Free will corresponds to the grace of God in all possible ways, and thereby it does not lose its freedom but rather receives the possibility of entering the dimension of the divine. This entry, nevertheless, is again the work of grace and it is through this work that free will proves to be essential. Had Augustine accepted the Pelagian conception and presupposed a certain proportionality between good deeds and divine grace, he would have agreed to a partial understanding of free will and grace. For proportionality in this respect means only that we have a measure of the absolute, that good deeds or merits give us the calculus to God’s absoluteness, but precisely this is impossible. Thus, by rejecting Pelagianism, Augustine actually contributed to a more proper understanding of both free will and divine grace. He underpinned the notion of

45 In discussing the character of faith, Augustine points out emphatically the personal nature of faith: just as a human face is deeply and overwhelmingly personal, inasmuch as it is always the face of a concrete person, so faith must be personal as well. See Mezei, Murphy, and Oakes, Illuminating Faith, p. 13. 46 See especially Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will. On Grace and Free Choice, and Other Writings, ed. and trans. Peter King (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2010).

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divine immediacy and thereby also the central importance of human personhood as ontologically open to the divine. At the same time, the divine shows an absolute openness to human persons, because this is what is expressed in the disproportionally greater power of God’s grace with respect to the human will. Apocalyptic personhood is thus understood as belonging to this openness and immediacy, as belonging directly to God and expressing this directness in all its workings.47 This understanding of apocalyptic personhood is, in my view, the key to the understanding of the articulate notion of the Trinity in Augustine’s work. As he explains in De Trinitate, what is distinct in human beings forms a unity in God, and what is unity in God appears distinct in human beings. God is understood along the lines of human faculties, such as mind, will, and memory. These faculties, however, form an essential unity in God such that the divine persons participate in all faculties in the same way, that is, essentially or absolutely. The essential unity of God is understood on the basis of the plurality in human beings and vice versa. Augustine certainly points out that human language and mind are insufficient to conceive and express the “living God.” Yet his understanding of the Trinity is synergetic with his understanding of human persons. The two sides determine each other on the level of Augustine’s description.48 On an historical scale, the Augustinian notion of divine immediacy as reflected in human personhood had an immense influence on the subsequent generations. It helped the emergence of the better understanding of human personhood as participating in divine personhood. It must be seen that the disproportion between the human and the divine is an essential feature of such an understanding. It is precisely this disproportionality that underpins the articulation of human personhood in the context of the absoluteness of divine personhood. The absoluteness of God is the genuine basis of the proper understanding of human personhood as well-defined and fully open, articulate and receptive, self-same and still originating in the reality of God. b. An Apocalypse of Contrasts In Augustine’s case, God’s overall and gracious power ensures not only the freedom of human persons but also that of history. There is, nevertheless, no synthetic fulfillment of history in Augustine’s work. The “city of God” and the “earthly city” exist parallel to one another and they also pervade each other. The city of God is visible and invisible, yet it is always open to the danger of the corruption of the earthly city. It is only the Last Judgment which separates the sheep and the goats, the wheat and the tares, the city of the good and the city of the evil. It is central to Augustine’s thought that his age is the end of history. The destruction of Rome, and

47 Augustine, On the Free Choice of the Will, p. 141. 48 Augustine, On the Trinity. Books 8–15, trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 176–81.

Stephen

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especially the Vandal invasion of Roman provinces in Hispania and Africa proved for him that history was closing; Augustine’s faith was nevertheless even firmer. As opposed to this more or less consistent understanding of grace and free will, divine kingdom and earthly history, there emerged a variety of conceptions that emphasized the tensions or even the contradictions between the divine and the human, the rational and the irrational, the eschatological and the historical. I have chosen one personality to show how human personhood came to harbor sharp contradictions on a number of fields while still maintaining the framework of fundamental Christian doctrines. These contrasts describe apocalyptic personhood in a peculiar way. On the one hand, personhood is still understood as an expression of divine power, and on the other hand, the same personality proves to be formed in a way which already forecasts the emerging wave of alienation from Christianity, that is, the first signs of the rise of secularization. In this version of apocalyptic personhood, there is no synthesis or consistency, because, as Blaise Pascal emphasized, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob [is] not of philosophers and scholars.49

Pascal’s personality was indeed an expression of the contrast, even the opposition, of deep devotion and secular mindset, doctrinal faithfulness and intellectual adventure, and a monastic lifestyle and social activism. The conversion of Pascal recalls the conversion of Augustine. Both men were in the high society of their respective ages and both represented a very high level of then available knowledge. Both produced works belonging to the most eminent products of the human mind. Both struggled for a long time before they converted. Last but not least, both followed an understanding of grace which emphasized the absolute importance of divine intervention into nature. It is Pascal’s understanding of the relationship between God and human persons that I want to expound here. Thereby I attempt to show a different expression of apocalyptic personhood. The kind of personhood we see in Pascal’s case can be characterized as that of the contradictory genius who produced groundbreaking works in a number of fields and even attempted to create an overarching theological synthesis. While he failed in this latter, he still shows the extraordinary power of insights and recognitions which he could not organize into a unified structure. In this fragmented, kaleidoscopic, yet brilliant radiation something new was born, namely, the fragmentary and contradictory nature of modern men still dreaming of an ultimate unity. Pascal’s many-sided genius proved to be effective in the sciences and literature. He failed in his planned apologetics of Christianity. But it is this failure which discloses the uniqueness of this personality, a uniqueness full with paradoxes and

49 Blaise Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, trans. Honor Levi, ed. Anthony Levi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 178.

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contradictions, sufferings and victories, inner dedication to God’s infinite power and the fragmented life he had to live. The focal event in Pascal’s life was his experience of conversion which triggered a complete change of life. We find his note, which he wrote about this event, in some collections of his Pensées: The year of grace 1654 Monday 23 November, feast of Saint Clement, Pope and martyr, and others of the Roman Martyrology. Eve of Saint Chrysogonus, martyr, and others. From about half past ten in the evening until about half past midnight. Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. not of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, joy, certainty, emotion, sight, joy God of Jesus Christ. Deum meum et Deum vestrum. Your God will be my God. Ruth. Oblivious to the world and to everything except GOD.50 Pascal was a scientist. What happened to him at the above date can still be described as a mystical experience, an experience of illumination or inner revelation. The phenomena of fire, certainty, joy, emotion, and sight all point to a radical inner conversion of the entire personality. Pascal, otherwise witty, sometimes skeptical, and always rational, cannot find the right words for his experience. But he certainly experienced a divine presence which changed his life. This experience made him the bearer of a special task, namely, the defense of the Augustinian Brothers in some of his influential writings, and thereafter the composition of an overall apologetics, a work which remained a fragment and was published as Pensées some years after his death. The fragmentariness of this work shows a deeper problem in the entire character of its author. On the one hand, to write a rational apologetics by an author who otherwise does not accept “the god of the philosophers” is slightly contradictory. On the other hand, this contradiction went hand in hand with a number of further tensions and contrasts which defined not only the person of Pascal but especially the kind of apocalyptic personhood he displayed. Pascal was always a Christian and believed in God as the Trinity. Yet his conversion elevated him to a height from which the world of earthly anxieties did not seem plausible. This caused intrinsic contradictions in his personality, such as the

50 Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, p. 178. There are various collections and editions of the Pensées, and only some contain the text of Pascal’s note sewn into the coat he wore until his death.

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one between rational thinking and faith, honest behavior and simulation, grace and human will, science and mysticism. Pascal embodied these tensions in his personality even before his experience of illumination, and yet the tensions became even more visible and obstinate after his mystical experience. While he was developing a rational apologetics of Christianity, he was deeply convinced of the uselessness of reason in matters of faith. While he followed an honest Christian life, he published sarcastic theological writings, in defense of his Augustinian friends, under the pseudonym of Louis de Montalte.51 He believed in the absolute power of divine grace over anything natural and intellectual, yet he developed the socalled argument of wager for the existence of God. He was even one of the leading scientists and inventors of his age, but his single most decisive experience was that of a mystic. It is indeed difficult to find and realize a unity of such opposing elements. “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know”—a witty and deep insight, yet it presupposes an antagonistic hostility between reason and heart, indeed a characteristic of Pascal’s personality.52 As to reason, Pascal seems to think that religion is not contrary to reason. However, what is based on reason is “ill-founded”; reason is ludicrous; reason is corrupted. More than that, “[i]t would no doubt be enough if reason were reasonable.”53 Reason is unreasonable, and yet when it comes to his argument for the existence of God based on a wager, he does not hesitate to explain why it is more reasonable to choose one option against the other: Since there is an equal chance of gain and loss, if you won only two lives instead of one, you could still put on a bet. But if there were three lives to win, you would have to play (since you must necessarily play), and you would be unwise, once forced to play, not to chance your life to win three in a game where there is an equal chance of losing and winning. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And that being so, even though there were an infinite number of chances of which only one were in your favour, you would still be right to wager one in order to win two, and you would be acting wrongly, since you are obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three in a game where out of an infinite

51 The Provincial letters appeared originally under the title Les Provinciales ou Lettres escrites par Louis de Montalte à un provincial de ses amis et aux RR. PP. Jésuites: Sur le sujet de la Morale, & de la Politique de ces Pères (Cologne: Pierre de la Vallée 1656). On the title page of the book almost everything was fake, except the sharp tone against the Jesuits. The author was not Louis de Montalte, but Pascal, the place of publication was not Cologne but Paris, and the year was not 1656 but 1657. 52 Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, p. 158: “The heart has its reasons which reason itself does not know: we know that through countless things. I say that the heart loves the universal being naturally, and itself naturally, according to its own choice. And it hardens itself against one or the other, as it chooses. You have rejected one and kept the other: is it reason that makes you love yourself?” 53 Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, p. 27.

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number of chances there is one in your favour, if there were an infinitely happy infinity of life to be won. But here there is an infinitely happy infinity of life to be won, one chance of winning against a finite number of chances of losing, and what you are staking is finite. That removes all choice: wherever there is infinity and where there is no infinity of chances of losing against one of winning, there is no scope for wavering, you have to chance everything.54

Pascal’s understanding of infinity comes to the fore in this passage. He obviously understands infinity as a mathematical infinite which goes beyond the finite number of losing by an infinite number of winning. There is a calculus here in which infinity has a number character. He is certainly clear about the fact that “a unit added to infinity does not increase it at all, any more than a foot added to an infinite length.”55 At the same time, he believes that [t]he finite dissolves in the presence of the infinite and becomes pure nothingness. So it is with our mind before God, with our justice before divine justice. There is not so great a disproportion between our justice and God’s justice as there is between unity and infinity.56

At the same time, Pascal does not seem to grasp that the act of faith, the faith in God, cannot be reached by using merely a kind of calculus. Faith is a paramount event of a human person and while it is rationally linked to the normal functioning of the mind, it has a non-rationally overwhelming power. Its origin is not rational and cannot be rational, as Augustine clearly saw. Supposing that one chooses the wager Pascal offers, it is still questionable if the faith thereby chosen can indeed be faith in the sense one needs it or it would be just a kind of pretension. Sadly, the argument of wager encourages hypocrisy which might be overcome (if someone in fact attempts the wager), but the result may also be the unintended yet very real sway of pretension over the person’s attitude. Pascal also thinks that if God is infinitely beyond our comprehension, he bears no relation to us, and thus we are incapable of knowing either what he is or if he is. Thus nobody would dare to undertake a resolution of this question; it cannot be us who bear relationship to God.57 As a matter of fact, the mathematical notion of infinity misleads Pascal. Absolute infinity is not merely an absolute distance but an absolute nearness as well, as, for instance, Augustine clearly saw when he pronounced his adage:  Interior intimo meo et superior summo meo (God is maximally above us and maximally in us).58 Pascal sees just one side of this unique relationship, because his understanding of infinity is similarly one-sided. Yet it was

54 55 56 57 58

Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, p. 154. Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, p. 152. Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, p. 152. Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, p. 153. Augustine, Confessions, III, 6, 11.

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precisely this one-sidedness that determined his contradictory personality. This made him an influential figure immediately after his death and especially during and after the Second World War when the misery of human nature became far too obvious. Through his contradictions, Pascal in fact expresses some of the main features of modern and contemporary humanity. He is one of the early figures representing such a contradictory shape. Montaigne, Shakespeare, or Cervantes before him already outlined the contours of similar personalities: Montaigne in the Apologie de Raymond Sébond, Shakespeare in the figure of Hamlet, and Cervantes in Don Quixote. Pascal, nevertheless, was not the creation of an author’s otherwise representative imagination. He was the real expression of a fragmentary figure and thus he can be seen as the expression of what I call fragmented apocalyptic personhood.59 In fragmented apocalyptic personhood, the tension between contradictory moments comes to the fore. The slaughtered-yet-victorious-Lamb is the central incarnation of the distorted unity of such an underlying tension. Yet the paradox of death and life, passion and resurrection is already present in the earlier writings of New Testament, often with an unparalleled force, such as in the opposition between light and darkness, good and evil, Jew and Gentile, old man and new man. In subsequent developments, the paradoxical unity of tensions was able to dominate the overall understanding of God and the world. In Augustine, even if tensions emerge to a higher level, we still see the ontological and rational unity of contradictions. The rise of Aristotelianism during the Middle Ages, the sharpening of analytical reason throughout the Renaissance period, and later the rapid unfolding of the natural sciences made it possible to reinterpret the human-divine relationship in such a way that the isolation of reason and the natural fragility of human nature called for more accurate reflections. The formation of human personhood profited from this development:  it reached a better defined understanding of a person and also a more plausible view of the physical framework of human existence. For Pascal, human beings are “thinking reeds” in the sense that they show a surprising capacity of intellectual achievements in a naturally fragile physical form.60 Accordingly, human dignity does not consist in anything physical, but rather in the fundamental capacity of human beings to recognize their own wretchedness. Pascal nevertheless adds that intellectual quality is also an expression of dignity, and yet his basic conviction concerns the awareness of human misery, because, as he writes, a tree does not recognize its wretchedness.61 At the same time, Pascal saw himself fully in God’s hands. In this, he is fundamentally different from Montaigne, Shakespeare, or Cervantes. His understanding was that God revealed himself to him and disclosed his salvific will to him. God’s apocalypse, as it were, imbued Pascal’s personality in such a way that he came

59 Nevertheless, imagined personalities, such as Prospero (from The Tempest), Don Quixote or Faust, can equally express the model of personhood at a given age. 60 Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, pp. 72–3. 61 Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, p. 36.

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to understand himself in terms of this divine disclosure. His personality came to express a special form of apocalyptic personhood which I term “fragmentary”: the apocalyptic personhood of unbridgeable contrasts and tensions. Logically, the gap in this personhood is constituted by a one-sided understanding of the notion of infinity. Epistemologically, it is construed by contradictory understandings of the capacity of reason. Morally, it is expressed in the casuistry, as it were, concerning the use of a pseudonym in a rhetorical defense of his colleagues. Mystically, the underlying experience is about the insuperable difference between “the god of the philosophers” and the “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” This contradictory selfunderstanding had to remain fragmented and thus offered the possibility of a new development in the evolution of apocalyptic personhood. c. A Faustian Apocalypse In many ways, Pascal appears to be a “Faustian” personality with his experienced loneliness in the infinite space.62 However, Pascal felt not only loneliness, but also “terror.” In this way, he is fundamentally different from the Faustian personality insofar as the latter strives to reach infinity. In a sense, this striving for infinity is heir to the Christian striving for deification or theiosis. But the Faustian personality loses the fundamental Christian motive of passivity vis-à-vis the divine and shows a certain activism. In Goethe’s work, this activism is pronounced yet limited, because the final destiny of Faust is fulfilled not through the will of Faust but by divine grace. In this point, the Faust is again closer to Pascal than to Nietzsche (where activism grows into absurdity) or Heidegger (where the fate of the Dasein is decided by itself). In Goethe’s work, the person of Faust embodies almost all the features we find in Montaigne, Hamlet, or Don Quixote, and it includes even some important qualities of Pascal. Montaigne sarcastic realism, Hamlet’s self-destructive doubt, Don Quixote’s psychic idealism, and Pascal’s infinite self-engagement flow together in the figure of Faust and create a higher synthesis. Pascal’s dedication to the scientific study of the physical world is overtaken by Faust in the more complex form of the study of nature, expressed in the figure of Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles, as the play makes it clear, is a servant of the Earth-Spirit which expresses nature; Faust’s way through nature and history is suitably assisted by Mephistopheles. Pascal’s mystical experience is developed into a continuous experience of transcendence by Faust beginning with the appearance of the Earth-Spirit and ending with the ultimate encounter with the Eternal-Feminine. Faust’s decisive interpretation of the first verse of the Gospel of John, at the beginning of Part One, should be seen in this context: It says: “In the beginning was the Word.” Already I am stopped. It seems absurd.

62 Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings, p. 73: “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.”

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The Word does not deserve the highest prize, I must translate it otherwise If I am well inspired and not blind. It says: In the beginning was the Mind. Ponder that first line, wait and see, Lest you should write too hastily: Is mind the all-creating source? It ought to say: In the beginning there was Force. Yet something warns me, as I grasp the pen, That my translation must be changed again. The spirit helps me. Now it is exact. I write: In the beginning was the Act.63 What Hamlet could never do, what Don Quixote mistook for his ideal, what Montaigne could not but all too realistically mock, Faust discovers and decides to realize. He starts, naturally, with the problem of proper translation. He was looking for a better German word for the Greek logos, as he was concerned with the very origin of reality. If the source of reality is “word,” we do not yet reach the genuine source. A word is always pronounced by someone. If we change the “word” to “mind” (in German Sinn, meaning), we presuppose again a deeper reality. Perhaps this deeper reality is the power or force that creates everything. Kraft nevertheless is a dynamic property of processes already in existence, thus this translation cannot be accepted either. Faust’s final candidate is therefore “act” (Tat, deed). In action, word and mind and force are all synthesized; action is the form of these contents and also the origin of word and meaning, mind and power. Indeed, Faust only finds again, in a new form, the Hellenistic and medieval understanding of God as actus purus. Nevertheless, “act” does not only refer here to an abstract principle. Faust does not only want to identify the first principle but wants to find a way to be united with it. He is bored with the petty obligations of a professor and searches to realize the ultimate principle of reality. He does not strive for something intellectual, not even something like worldly power. Faust does have influence as a respected professor. What he seeks is a new creation, as it were, an action in which newness can be realized. In the framework of the sciences, Faust decides to leave behind the acknowledged disciplines and attempts to break a new path. The decision is expressed in the fact that he uses magic to evoke the spirit of action. The Earth-Spirit indeed appears, but Faust proves to be too weak to use the opportunity. Instead of the Earth-Spirit he is supplied with its servant, Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles is not only “[p]art of that force which would do evil evermore, and yet creates the good,” but more importantly the spirit of negation.64 Action needs

63 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, German/English edition, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufman (New York: Anchor Books, 1963), p. 153. 64 Goethe, Faust, pp. 159–61.

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the context of negation; and Faust needs negation in his action. While he strikes a deal with the spirit of negation, he remains skeptical about the spirit. The essence of the deal is not about power or influence but about finding the ultimate source of reality. Faust’s conversion is only a far cry from the conversion of Augustine or Pascal. Yet it is through this negative conversion that he is able to connect the essence of traditional tragedy with the essence of a new kind of drama, embodied in the Second Part of the Faust, the drama of ultimate elevation. In the First Part, action is realized in Faust’s romance with Margaret, in her conception of a child, her murder of the child, and the death sentence and execution of the young lady. At the beginning, Faust’s aim appeared to be only to seduce Margaret. It turns out only gradually that he in fact fell in love with the girl and even attempted her rescue from prison. Despite his deeper emotions, Faust commits a series of crimes: the seduction of Margaret, the indirect murder of Margaret’s mother and the direct murder of her brother, and a number of frauds, all realized with the assistance of Mephistopheles. Thereby Faust learns the deep layers of negative reality, indeed a version of the hell of Dante’s Comedia. Faust accumulates energy to be used in the Second Part. Yet the First Part offers no solution. The last words are the cries of Margaret from the depth of her prison: he names Faust and expresses thereby the fulfillment of his individual personality in the form of a tragedy without solution and catharsis. There is no solution of the Faust on the level of human actors. The Second Part, nevertheless, develops its own great syntheses. Faust becomes an influential nobleman. As a counselor of the emperor he has a word in politics. He uses this power to build civilization—Goethe ascribes the construction of the great dikes in the Netherlands to the efforts of Faust. He immerses into the depth of the past to find the unfathomable beauty, Helene. Struck by the highest form of earthly beauty he creates a synthesis of the past and the present, Hellenic history and Germanic Europe. The drama indeed suggests that “Europe” was born out of the love of the Northern peoples for Hellenic culture, a love which led not only to destruction of the ancient world but more importantly to the development of Western Christianity and the nation states in Europe with all their richness of civilization and culture. In the meantime, we are introduced to the history of philosophy. The drama is a philosophical work with the perspective of philosophy as a dialectical debate between opposing viewpoints. Thales and Anaxagoras appear as representatives of the rival views on the ultimate source of reality. While this source for Thales is the principle of water, for Anaxagoras, the principle of fire. Yet the clue they want to find is lingering around them in the form of a quasi-human being, the Homunculus, a creation of secondary alchemy by Wagner, a disciple of Faust. Since the Homunculus proves to be a failure in the end, the question remains open: what is the source of the universe? The answer of the drama is the drama itself:  the ultimate source of the universe is the person-forming power of an invisible might which is expressed in the story of Faust seeking to realize his own apocalyptic personality.

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Nevertheless, the tragic Faust of the First Part reappears: due to his order, his servants murder the benign old couple of Philemon and Baucis. This creates the final crisis in Faust’s life. He cannot accept that innocent people died as a consequence of his construction plans. Here again, the drama does not offer a human solution. It seems that there is no way to avoid the damnation of Faust’s soul when Faust reaches the end of his earthly life. Mephistopheles is prepared to grab the soul, when on a sudden the heavenly powers appear in a new form of a deus ex machina. Goethe’s description of the heavenly hierarchies, the singing of the angels, cherubim, and seraphim are at par with the most elevated medieval imagination. The final point is especially emphatic: it is due to the penitence and mercifulness of Margaret, who is already a citizen of the heavenly circle, that Faust is saved from eternal damnation and granted the possibility of purification. Goethe’s hymn to the Eternal-Feminine belongs to the most elevated pieces of the world literature: What is destructible Is but a parable; What fails ineluctably, The undeclarable. Here it was seen, Here it was action; The Eternal-Feminine Lures to perfection.65 Kaufmann’s translation does its best to convey the meaning of the original. It is especially praiseworthy that he uses the word “action” in these last lines, because thereby he makes it evident that in the ultimate action of mercy Faust’s original striving to action is fulfilled. It is also obvious that, in spite of the medieval setting, Goethe is introducing here a new recognition: he points out that the ultimate source of reality is not the principle of action but the principle of mercy, elevation, purification, and renewal. However, the notion of “perfection”—the last word in the translation—does not appear in the original text of Faust. It is only the possibility of perfection that is referred to by the closing hymn. The meaning of all the tragedy and drama which the Faust represents lies in the possibility of a final renewal. The principle of this renewal is Das ewig Weibliche, the Eternal-Feminine, a new understanding of the traditional notion of the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary. It is the Eternal-Feminine that gives meaning to the universal drama, and it is the Eternal-Feminine that gives birth to the renewal of reality. In fact, this insight is not only close to the central message of the penultimate chapter of the Book of Revelation, but it is a plausible interpretation of it. Goethe offers his own description of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the form of the heavenly hosts and, as it were, places Faust into the midst of this elevated community. Thus, Faust becomes the expression of the Lamb of God, or perhaps it is more precise

65 Goethe, Faust, p. 503.

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to say that he is only a preliminary form of the Lamb of God. On the one hand, Faust is the wounded hero; on the other hand, we receive no information about his full recovery (“perfection”), because he is elevated to heaven in order to become purified. We are informed about the principle, that is, Faust’s redemption, and the possibility of purification. But we do not know exactly what form the slaughteredyet-victorious-lamb will take in the New Faustian Jerusalem. There is a missing part at the end of the Faust, a scene, which would correspond to the last chapter of the Book of Revelation. The notion of apocalyptic personhood receives nevertheless a unique form in Goethe’s work. Faust is a synthesis of earlier forms and he opens a new perspective in the same context. Personhood is defined in a new form in him. On the one hand, personhood proves to be a synthesis of history integrating past, present, and future. On the other hand, personhood points to the birth of radical newness not in spite of, but rather due to, the fact of its previous development. Newness is born from these developments. Yet it is about a renewed personhood simul justus et peccator—both righteous and sinner at the same time. Faust is indeed both a sinner and a just person, yet he is both only in the new form which originates in the ultimate action of divine mercy. Faust’s personhood represents the synthetic form of apocalyptic personhood. Goethe’s understanding is deeply rooted in the Hellenistic-Christian traditions without which he could not have formed the figure of Faust. The Faust is indeed about divine revelation. Its entire story is embedded in the providential context of divine scenes and Faust, just like Job in the Bible, accomplishes his dramatic career as the result of divine prearrangement. The meaning of this design can be seen: it is about the birth of a new form of personality, that is, apocalyptic personality. Nevertheless, the Trinitarian relations cannot be directly clarified on the basis of the drama, because the drama, after all, remains a torso. Even if the fate of Faust is decided, we do not see the result of his purification and final salvation. That is to say, this new form of apocalyptic personality is not sufficient to let us see its ultimate theological consequences. What we may nevertheless see is the active possibility of an ultimate elevation of Faust as a new form of the slaughtered-yet-victorious-lamb in the New Jerusalem. In the present context, I cannot continue my investigations into the variety of forms of apocalyptic personhood that have been born as a consequence of Goethe’s work. In general we may say that there was almost no intellectual and spiritual development during the subsequent decades which was not influenced by Goethe’s drama. New developments of philosophy and theology, new understandings of personhood beginning with Kierkegaard through Schelling and Schopenhauer up to the thought of Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, Max Scheler, and Martin Heidegger have all been indebted to some of the insights of Goethe presented in the Faust. The Faustian man, as Spengler called it, has in fact determined our understanding of personhood and even today exerts its influence.66 66 Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West: Form and Actuality, trans. Charles Francis Atkinson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926), pp. 181–217, 224–6, 305–308, 317–20, 341–5, 375–429.

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d. The Visage as Apocalypse If we need to focus on a decisive development of apocalyptic personhood, it must be the one presented in the works of Emmanuel Lévinas. The reason for my choice is relatively simple:  Just as the understanding of personhood by Pascal defined subsequent developments in surprisingly new ways, Lévinas’s influence has proved to be similarly fruitful. To state it in a nutshell: in Lévinas’s work, the development I have been following so far turns into its opposite and creates what I term negative apocalyptic personhood. Lévinas’s thought may be interpreted merely along the lines of his publications throughout the twentieth century. It is still important to see that in most of his works there is an implicit and explicit polemics going on with the philosophies of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The most important difference between Lévinas and the two other authors consists in that Lévinas rejects their supposed idealism. His starting point is not the consciousness, the ego or the subject, but that which Lévinas terms exteriority. “Being is external,” as Lévinas formulates it, yet this external character is not based on the subjectobject opposition. What is genuinely external is what cannot be reduced to the internal, the subject. What is by its essence external cannot be properly conceived in any way. Lévinas recognizes this exteriority in the phenomenon of the face (visage) of another person. The face manifests an absolute other to me and cannot be “touched” or “understood.” It cannot be seen in the sense that it does not allow itself to be immanentized or engulfed by a subject.67 Facing the face is the only possibility open for us. The face-to-face experience of the visage is where our own being begins. The face, nevertheless, is first of all “the face of the other human being.”68 The face of the other human being is “epiphany,” a “revelation,” that is to say, an appearance that cannot be appropriated. The content of the epiphany remains untouchable and cannot be assimilated by a subject. The subject, in this case, is the human being that faces the face of the other and recognizes in it the overwhelming power of exteriority as the fundamental form of reality. It is Lévinas’s intention to insist at the incarnate and concrete meaning of the self, and also at the initially incarnate and concrete meaning of the “face of the other.” In the face of the other one recognizes the most basic form of exteriority which concerns the inviolability of the other one. The other calls for responsibility, and in this way ethics as the description of this responsibility becomes “first philosophy.” Ethics as first philosophy is about my relationship to the other, my ethical attitude, my acknowledgment above all of the absolute otherness of the other human being. It is in this otherness that personhood is essentially expressed. Personhood consists in absolute otherness.

67 Emmanuel Lévinas, Totalité et Infini. Essai sur l’exteriorité (Paris:  Librairie générale française, 1971), p. 211. 68 Lévinas, Totalité et Infini, p. 322.

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The face of the other, nevertheless, is only prima facie the face of another human being. Ultimately, the face of the other turns out to be the face of the Other. The Other, that is to say, “the infinite other,” expresses itself in the face of the other: in the face of a concrete human being. In all our everyday experiences, the face-to-face relation to the other proves to be a sign of the face-to-face relation to the Other. Yet the Other is exteriority in a more elevated sense: it is infinity, height (hauteur). The infinity can never be reduced to the finite, thus the Other can never be dissolved in the self in Lévinas’s sense. This “self,” le soi-même, is pure immanence which is incapable of transcending itself. There is an unbridgeable gap between transcendence and immanence, exteriority and interiority. While this radical difference cannot be abolished, the absolutely Other can still reach human selfhood, for instance, in what Lévinas terms “teaching.”69 In this structure of otherness, Lévinas repeatedly emphasizes that the Other is more than being, because being in most of its senses refers to the bodily concrete, the particular. It is otherness that saves us from the particular by its manifestation. Yet in all its manifestation the Other escapes our grasp. Our fundamental relationship to the Other is realized in the relationship to the others, that is, our neighbors. It is in justice that we are best related to our neighbors; and it is in justice that we are related, in a certain sense, to the infinite Other. In his later work, Lévinas nevertheless does not remain content with the philosophy of concreteness and separation. While he emphasizes the epiphany of the other in his early work (especially in Totality and Infinity), he points out that in epiphany the otherness of the Other remains intact. There is no genuine relationship between the self and the Other, because in this relation the otherness proves to be even more intense. Especially in Otherwise Than Being, Lévinas develops the argument for otherness in the sense that he emphasizes the presence of otherness in the same or its immanence. The otherness remains otherness in immanence as well, yet there is a special gift by which the otherness of the Other can be addressed: prophecy. In Lévinas’s vocabulary, “prophecy” is the manifestation of the presence of otherness in the same. As he writes, It is in prophecy that the Infinite escapes the objectification of thematization and of dialogue, and signifies as illeity, in the third person. This “thirdness” is different from that of the third man, it is the third party that interrupts the face to face of a welcome of the other man, interrupts the proximity or approach of the neighbor, it is the third man with which justice begins.70

Prophecy is bringing witness to the glory of infinity. It is not about having an intimate relationship with infinity, because infinity, even if present in the finite, keeps its total difference from the finite. Prophecy is the special mode in which the

69 Lévinas, Totalité et Infini, p. 186. 70 Emmanuel Lévinas, Otherwise Than Being, or Beyond Essence, trans. Alfonso Lingis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1998), p. 150.

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infinity of infinity is expressed by its presence for the witness so that infinity may be glorified. Infinity is always “illeity” or “third person,” which cannot be properly described by a Thou or an I. The way I  am capable of giving prophecy is my “sincerity.” Sincerity is the expression of what Lévinas called responsibility, for sincerity is “the veracity of saying.”71 It is a gift of Infinity that I am capable of sincerity, and it is a gift of the same that I am able to give witness. In witnessing, the saying is without a “said,” without a well-defined object, because it is the Infinite that is its object yet infinity cannot be an object in the proper sense. Lévinas avoids using the word “God” in this and similar contexts. As he writes, The word God is an overwhelming semantic event that subdues the subversion worked by illeity. The glory of the Infinite shuts itself up in a word and becomes a being. But it already undoes its dwelling and unsays itself without vanishing into nothingness.72

If he avoids the word “God,” because “it unsays itself,” the notion of revelation will have a similar place in Lévinas’s thought. One may think that the face of the other and especially of the Other is already revelation, because Lévinas terms it epiphany. Again, one may think that prophecy or witness is the result of revelation, because prophetic revelation has always belonged to the semantic center of the notion of revelation. Yet Lévinas emphasizes that the Infinite never enters into a context, a theme, and never loses its exteriority. If infinity is expressed, it is indeed a revelation. But here there is an inversion of order: the revelation is made by him that receives it, by the inspired subject whose inspiration, alterity in the same, is the subjectivity or psyche of the subject. The revelation of the beyond being is perhaps indeed but a word, but this “perhaps” belongs to an ambiguity in which the anarchy of the Infinite resists the univocity of an originary or a principle.73

If the prophet is inspired, it is “the word of God in his heart,” as Augustine would say. It is something fundamentally different in him, the divine in the human, that comes expressed in prophecy. When prophecy is realized, it is “the subjectivity” of the subject, that is to say, its being subject to inspiration. Thus if there is revelation, it is a revelation of an unknown origin, an ambiguous source, in accordance with the “anarchy”—that is, the quality of being without a beginning—of infinity. There is no possibility to refer to the infinite by means of univocity or in terms of a beginning, because the infinite is infinitely different from everything, including

71 Lévinas, Otherwise Than Being, p. 31. 72 Lévinas, Otherwise Than Being, p. 151. 73 Lévinas, Otherwise Than Being, p. 156.

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its own immanence in the finite. Its transcendence, its exteriority is more exterior, more “other” than any exteriority of being. The witness or the prophet has been an important subject matter of my above investigations as well. We have seen that in the Book of Revelation, Christ is called “the faithful witness.” Similarly, Augustine does not only say that speaking about the word of God is already, in a certain sense, the word of God in my heart, but he emphasizes as well that God is at the same time infinitely distant from me and infinitely close to me. Augustine considers these two moments complementary: If God were only infinite distance from us, we could not be saved. God is infinitely distant and infinitely close to us. God becomes incarnate in Christ, suffers and dies for our sins, and is resurrected for our redemption. He is in us and among us, and it is one of the most important aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity that God, as a Trinity, is simultaneously immanent and transcendent; it dynamically connects the ad intra and ad extra dimensions. Rubens’s painting, which I analyzed above (Chapter 3, section 9), is one of the most moving representations of this understanding of the Trinity. If we consider God’s infinity merely in the sense of a difference or a distinction, we actually deprive infinity of its infinity, because we limit it to a difference. If we emphasize that the presence of infinity is such that it remains infinitely different or other in its presence, we belie the infinity of the infinite. We delimit this infinity freely and voluntarily by acknowledging at the same time that infinity is truly infinite yet it can be limited by the finite, such as our conception, thought or experience. It belongs to the genuinely ascetic side of human thinking not to enter the path of finalizing infinity in the finite, because that contradicts the infinity of the infinite and creates an opposition, a hostility to the genuine character of the infinite. It is the greatness of the Trinitarian understanding of infinity that it embraces and imbues the finite already in its ad extra dimension, and also in the teaching of the Assumption, as we saw above.74 Lévinas nevertheless raises the problem of the presence of God in history in a Christian sense. In his article “A Man-God,” he considers the Christian notion of incarnation, “a scandal for the Jews.”75 He offers a certain interpretation of Christ, according to which it is not the God-Man—God incarnate in a human form—that appears to be acceptable, but rather the notion of a “Man-God.” This is a version of what we saw above:  The only possible relationship to the Other is about the relationship to the others. When we are inspired, we do justice to others. When we are genuine subjects and thus subjected to the inspiration of infinity, we become, in a sense, “Man-Gods,” because it is the Infinite Other that is effective in us, while it always keeps it infinitely intact. Can we say that Lévinas indeed conceives the notion of incarnation as Christians do? In the Christian understanding, the Incarnate Word is fully God. He is present in the world in his entire human reality. Yet he belongs to the Trinity both as the

74 See Chapter 6, section 4. 75 See Michael Purcell, Levinas and Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 159.

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Eternal and the Incarnate Word. As we repeatedly saw above, the doctrine of communicatio idiomatum or “the communication of properties” points out that all the properties of the Incarnate Word can be applied to the Eternal Word, so that the Eternal Word is incarnate and the Incarnate Word is eternal. This doctrine contains the crucial Christian insight. This insight is mirrored in the kenosis, in the “gestures of freedom,” and in all the various notions of revelation I developed in this volume with the emphasis on radical revelation. Last but not least, this central notion is also expressed in apocalyptic personhood. For the apocalyptic person— Jesus in the New Testament, the doctrinal traditions and the entire culture of the arts of Western history—appears not only as the present-yet-distant-deity of the Trinity but rather as a living force, “alive and powerful,” who is pure activity both in the intra-Trinitarian and the extra-Trinitarian senses. As I argued, it is the latter that is “closer” to us, that is “first” for us, because of our particular empirical situation. But this situation is a “window,” as it were, which opens to the richness of the Trinitarian life in which we participate and which we understand to some extent and in a nonproportional way. But the heart of the matter is precisely this living organization of revelation ad intra and ad extra, which is the realization of divine love in itself and in history. Apocalyptic personhood is the fulfillment of this realization in its various forms and perspectives. As I have shown, the core understanding of apocalyptic personhood is already present in the Bible and then in the history of Christianity. It is present not only in the martyrs, but also in the arts, theology, and philosophy. Apocalyptic personhood permeated Christian mysticism from Origen through Augustine and Meister Eckhart to Spanish mysticism and various philosophies that emerged in the wake of this evolution. Apocalyptic personhood determined Augustine’s conversion, Dante’s universal vision, Pascal’s personality, the Faust, and many other developments thereafter. In this history we see a meaningful evolution throughout the centuries which led to a better understanding of human personhood as apocalyptic. Many of Lévinas’s ideas belong to the development of apocalyptic personhood. The notion of the visage as an epiphany, the face-to-face relation to the Other, Lévinas’s interpretation of prophecy and witness are all moments of apocalyptic personhood. However, what motivated this development of apocalyptic personhood was the original idea succinctly summarized in the notion of the communicatio idiomatum. The Lamb of God is both slaughtered and glorious; he is slaughtered from the beginning of the world, and he shares, indeed, the throne of God. We may develop the notion of God in various ways, such as pointing out its inappropriateness in view of an ineffable mystery. Yet it is precisely this mystery of concreteness that is articulated in the unity of the Eternal and Incarnated Word, in the Lamb of God sharing the throne of God. If there were merely an infinite distance between the slaughtered and the glorious Lamb, this mystery would fall apart. If there were an infinite distance between the Incarnate and the Eternal Word, the mystery would turn out to be a deistic platitude. If there were an infinite distance between God and the World, the mystery of salvation would become null and void. Apocalyptic personhood

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would also fall apart, because its synthesis of radical and fulfilled personhood could not be realized. There are some important consequences of the above point to the overall line of thought in the present work. Lévinas’s richness and depth notwithstanding, there is an interruption in his thinking reflecting the lack of the simultaneous greatness of both of the two dimensions which Augustine called interior intimo meo et superior summo meo.76 These two dimensions are understood with respect to one another. Even if there is a fundamental disproportion between the human and the divine, it is due to the grace of the divine that the Eternal and the Incarnate Word are one and the same as being both intimo meo and summo meo. In Lévinas, in spite of the richness of his thought, the development of apocalyptic personhood reaches a point when it becomes negative. Personhood is isolated from the other and from infinity. For Lévinas, even divine revelation is such that its presence creates a distance. Epiphany turns out to be a non-epiphany. Thus, apocalyptic personhood is changed into an intersubjective intimacy and social justice in such a way that its eternal distance from the infinite reflects an ontological rigidity. Lévinas’s understanding is different also from the notion of re-velation I considered above.77 In the notion of re-velation, the fluctuation of revelation and re-velation, disclosure and hiding, is such that these elements are related to one another and thus both revelation and re-velation are genuine. However, the principle of refusivum sui is again about the free integration of the two meanings of refundo, withdrawal and reparation. It is in reparation or compensation that we realize the integral togetherness of the two sides. Reparation, nevertheless, is realized as immediacy and not as distance, immanence and not exteriority, a sharing and not a taking. Revelation is factual. It is not only a sincerity which belongs to its disclosure but an absolute self-giving as well. This self-giving is part and parcel of the divine self-sacrifice not only as an image but rather as reality. Revelation is reality, the ultimate fact, which is the tenor of the present work. Nevertheless, it is part and parcel of the history of apocalyptic personhood that it displays its inner possibilities in due course of time, just as it happened in the model of Pascal and also in Lévinas’s work. I have mentioned the principle of “infiniti ad finitum nulla proportio” on the previous pages. I have pointed out that the genuine meaning of nulla proportio is certainly not any kind of a distance we have from divine reality. On the contrary, the principle expresses the togetherness of distance and closeness in the fundamental fact of the infinite. This fact makes it possible to recognize the lack of proportion between the finite and the infinite, a lack which paradoxically serves as the basis of analogy. For in the classical formula of analogy, the similitude between the finite and the infinite is overwritten by the always greater dissimilitude.78 Yet this

76 Augustine, Confessions, III, 6, 11. 77 See Chapter 4, section 5, in the present work. 78 See Chapter 3, section 5, above.

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recognition is based on the concrete fact of the infinite as given for us; and this fact is indeed given for us; by denying this givenness we confirm it. By emphasizing not only “the always greater dissimilarity” between the finite and the infinite, but rather an undefined and undefinable dissimilarity, as Lévinas does, we find ourselves in a self-destroying contradiction. A dissimilarity which goes beyond any conceivable dissimilarity is not a dissimilarity at all. It is, rather, a rhetorical ellipsis which overemphasizes a legitimate point but just by overemphasizing it also destroys it. The finite is finite with respect to the infinite and the infinite is infinite with respect to the finite. Of course, infinity is infinity and thus it would be insufficient to conceive it as a finite thing enlarged into infinity by imagination. But the genuine infinity of the infinite is such that it is freely different yet also non-different from the finite. If we neglect this freedom of similarity and dissimilarity, we destroy the finite in its own right and also destroy, as it were, the infinite as well. The emphasis on infinite dissimilarity presupposes a fundamental similarity on the basis of which we can recognize the fact of dissimilarity. If we reject the presupposition of togetherness, we do not only reject a logical implication but also the fundamental doctrine of our traditions. Both entail the denial of the fact of similarity, given in the notion of infinity, on the basis of which the genuine dissimilarity of the infinite can be recognized. If we nevertheless dispose of the presupposition of togetherness, freely given and freely received, we destroy the nature of the finite and also its relationship to the infinite; we annihilate the finite by a one-sided exaggeration. By doing so, the finite dissolves for us both in the philosophical and theological senses and we lose thereby the perspective of what has been characterized here as apocalyptic personhood. The result is the negative apocalyptic personhood, a perspective in which the notion of revelation loses its meaning and personhood, seemingly defended, is deprived of its autonomy.

7. The Musical Genius I have selected just a few examples from the history of ideas to demonstrate the fruitfulness of the perspective applied here.79 The emergence and the variety of

79 The notion of revelation is central to the thought of Michel Henry, for example, in the form of “revelation of revelation.” Cf. Michel Henry, I Am the Truth:  Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, trans. Susan Emmanuel (Stanford:  Stanford University Press, 2003), p.  25. Yet it is not easy to interpret Henry’s thought in the present context, because his understanding of revelation is of a natural kind lacking the dimension of personhood, freedom, and novelty. His notion of revelation is not genuinely apocalyptic and thus it is not so much revelation as just a natural outpouring of being. This being, moreover, is defined as absolute life and life is seen as physically corporeal. This material understanding of revelation recalls to some extent the neo-Platonic view of the One and its emanation. It defies the Christian notion of revelation as the work of freedom and thus as the eschatologically oriented, interpersonal form of self-revelation. While it is in principle possible to describe

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apocalyptic personhood, as the utmost expression of radical revelation, show the influence of this understanding on an historical trajectory. I would still emphasize that the reality of apocalyptic personhood is just as immanent as it is transcendent and belongs to the inner life of revelation just as it determines the economy of revelation. Divine self-revelation leads to the revelation of apocalyptic personhood in itself as well as in history, because, as Gilles Emery writes: theology and economy are intimately connected, to such a point that one would make a blunt error if one devolved the economy to a secondary rank. . . . On the other hand, it is when one knows it as rooted in the immanent life of the Trinity that the true nature of economy comes to light. . . . One cannot get a panoramic view of God’s action without reflecting on the “immanent Trinity”; and without a deep study of the “economic Trinity,” theology would have no bite.80

These words are based on an analysis of Thomas Aquinas’s treatise on the Trinity. Yet they are equally applicable on the present approach. There is no bite of any understanding of the divine if it is not incarnate in our world and if we are not given the possibility of perceiving its presence. And we cannot have a “panoramic view” of revelation without reflecting on the inner revelation of the divine. Lévinas’s understanding of the relationship between the finite and the infinite lacks the most important layer of the above recognition, the self-giving immediacy of the divine in our earthly matters by way of grace. Infinity is null and void without grace. If there is no grace, there is no infinity. Infinity without the effective dimension of grace is just an idol. Apocalyptic personhood is the expression of divine grace in its immediacy and presence, in its factual existence, in the fact of revelation as I have considered it throughout in the present work. It is apocalyptic personhood that realizes the ad intra and ad extra dimensions of grace in a complex and complementary way. It is not merely in the history of saints that we have to look for ramifications of this realization, but also in the entire development of Christian history with a special emphasis on its great achievements in a variety of realms. So far I have briefly analyzed paintings, poems, and philosophers with reference to some of the points developed in the framework of a radical philosophical theology. But there is another enormous realm of the arts in which the figure of apocalyptic personhood appears to have incarnated, as it were, and this is the realm of music. An overview of the history of music, beginning with the Pythagorean notion of the music of the cosmic spheres through medieval and Renaissance developments of the mathematical understanding of music, is without relevance here. It is more important, however, that the understanding of music Henry’s notion of revelation as a model in the above sense, this model has no particular theoretical importance at this point. Cf. my piece, Revelation in Phenomenology, in: Balázs M. Mezei, Francesca A. Murphy, and Kenneth Oakes (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Divine Revelation (forthcoming). 80 Emery, The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 414.

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as the expression of some kind of spiritual truth was articulated symmetrically with the evolution of other important notions in the history of Christianity, such as a human person or the concept of divine revelation. In this development, music gradually lost its mimetic function of physical events or human communication. The emergence of instrumental music, in itself an achievement of technology and experience, changed the role of the human voice in music in such a way that the non-mimetic reality of music could slowly emerge. This evolution began already in liturgical music and in church music in general, where the main objective remained a certain illustration, mimesis, i. e. the musical description of the stories of the gospels or the illustration of liturgical events. Nevertheless, well before the great generation of Baroque musicians, the understanding of the autonomy and the sui generis spiritual power of music was already recognized in the work of musicians, such as Palestrina or Purcell. In Baroque music, the pure musical function exploded in a revolutionary fashion in the works of Claudio Monteverdi, and, a century later, in the genial compositions of Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Haydn. The recognition of the great musician in society surged in parallel with the rise of the required expertise and the emergence of the autonomous figure of the composer. The composer was becoming the inspired author of heavenly truths. Handel, for instance, believed that when he was composing the Messiah in 1741 he saw “all Heaven” and even “the great God himself.”81 A deep congruency developed between the composer and the composition so that the composition revealed the inspiration of the composer himself. Even on a particular subject matter, as the St. Matthew Passion of J. S. Bach, the musical genius of the composer began to dominate the framework. It happened not only because of the essential development of new musical procedures, such as the counterpoint in Bach’s music or the contemplative style in the oratories of Handel, but rather because of the evolution of music into an unprecedented status. Music became a new kind of perception of the absolute, and thus the composer, symmetrically, received the status of the new perceiver of the absolute itself.82 Handel was a genius in music, but if we want to understand what a genius is we may find ourselves in a maze. It seems that Kant in the Critique of the Power of Judgment understands the genius as the product of nature. His definition is: Genius is the inborn predisposition of the mind (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art.83

81 Newman Flower adds to this line: “Handel was swept by some influence not of the world during that month—an influence not merely visionary.” Sir Newman Flower, Georg Friedrich Handel: His Personality and His Time (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), p. 290. See also Murphy, The Comedy of Revelation, p. 288. 82 Details are to be found in the uniquely well-written book by Mark Evan Bonds, Absolute Music: The History of an Idea (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 83 Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 185.

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However, it is still “spirit” which characterizes the work of a genius, because without spirit a work of art can be well developed or even masterly created yet lacks the unique quality which is present in the work of a genius. For Kant, the most important feature of the genius is originality, but since originality can be expressed in “original nonsense” as well, it must be in such a form that it is exemplary, that is, it serves “as a standard or a rule for judging.”84 As Kant also adds, any work of art of a genius must be based on the highest possible level of mastering the relevant branch of art, be it sculpture, painting, or literature. Most importantly, Kant emphasizes that the work of a genius cannot be reproduced in its original quality. It certainly can be copied or imitated, but copies and imitations lack the original feature of genius. The genial work of art is thus the work of genius, and while the genius is a natural being, he or she is characterized by features pointing beyond the average understanding of nature. Newton, Kant emphasizes, was not a genius, because his work can be learned and scientifically explained. But Homer or Wieland were geniuses, because it is not possible to determine how they were able to produce their works of art. These works bear their ultimately personal quality which is unique to their creator. Thus, even if implicitly, Kant suggests that the naturalness of a genius is limited to some extent (and he uses the expression of “nature” in a broad sense here) and what is decisive is indeed the ultimately unique character of the genius. Never an imitator or a follower can become a genius himself or herself. The genius is born and the example of the other genius, as Kant writes, awakens his or her genius which is to be realized in a new and original way: Genius is the exemplary originality of the natural endowment of a subject for the free use of his cognitive faculties. In this way the product of a genius (in respect of that in it which is to be ascribed to genius, not to possible learning or schooling) is an example, not for imitation (for then that which is genius in it and constitutes the spirit of the work would be lost), but for emulation by another genius, who is thereby awakened to the feeling of his own originality, to exercise freedom from coercion in his art in such a way that the latter thereby itself acquires a new rule, by which the talent shows itself as exemplary.85

Even if the wording of this quotation is awkward (due to the German original), Kant unmistakably points out that a genius cannot be produced by schooling or imitation. However, he can be “awakened” through the example of the other genius.86 In this way Kant establishes the way a genius, as he claims, is able to produce a school in which the possibility is open to the emergence of a new genius.

84 Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, pp. 186–7. 85 Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, pp. 195–6. 86 By using the notion of awakening, Kant might have had in mind his awakening, caused by Hume, from “dogmatic slumbers.”

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Kant has other things to say about the cognitive features of a genius, but his points—especially on the role of taste and understanding in the work of a genius— have no direct relevance here. It is more important to see that the creative genius, and thus the musical genius as well, is a unique phenomenon who is “born” and “awakened” in a special way, certainly in a way that goes beyond a narrowly understood notion of nature. The genius possesses spirit (Geist); that is, the genius is spiritual in a special sense. The genius embodies in a unique sense the nouveauté novatrice we have seen.87 His novelty cannot be derived, learned, or genuinely imitated. The genius, including the musical genius, then, is an originator. He or she is the very place where genuine novelty is born. Of course, in the discussions today the Kantian theory of genius seems to be closer to a romantic approach to the problem than to an understanding based on scientific evidence. Peter Kivy, one of the few contemporary authors who discuss the problem of the musical genius, suggests that what we may accept from the Kantian theory today is merely our inability to specify how and by what means the works of a genius—and he means here specifically the musical genius—could have been created. With some hesitation he confirms that the origin of the genius is inexplicable. We may add, nevertheless, that this inexplicability cannot be properly interpreted without the historical context in which the phenomenon of the musical genius appeared. This context is the context of revelation in the complex sense I have developed this notion in the present work. In particular, it is the context of apocalyptic personhood which gave rise not only to Christian theology and spirituality, not only to practices based on the Bible and its revelational contents, but to the specific culture of Christian music, especially Church music, in which such masterpieces as Handel’s Messiah could be composed. The phenomenon of the musical genius, as the notion developed from the mid-eighteenth century, has to be seen in this overall framework.88 During the nineteenth century, the greatest composers were central figures of cultural life. They appeared in a transcendental aura, as it were, and their work was seen in the context of otherworldly inspiration based on the unique talent of the composer. Schelling, himself responsible for overall efforts to reinterpret the notion of revelation,89 proposed that rhythmic music “represents the infinite within the finite” and “harmonic music will be more the expression of striving and of yearning.” More generally, The forms of music are the forms of the eternal things insofar as they are viewed from the real perspective, for the real side of the eternal things is that side from which the infinite is formed into the finite. Yet this same informing 87 See Chapter 6, section 2 above. 88 Cf. Peter Kivy, The Possessors of the Possessed: Handel, Mozart, Beethoven and the Idea of Musical Genius (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 249. 89 See Chapter 3, section 3 above.

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of the infinite into the finite is also the form of music, and since the forms of art in general are the essential forms of things, the forms of music are necessarily the forms of things in themselves or of the ideas viewed completely from their real side.90

The understanding of music follows the pattern of incarnation: what is real is the immediate expression of the infinite in a special way and in accordance with the original fullness of infinity. Infinity becomes by itself—that is to say, freely and nonproportionally—the finite and defines thereby not only the finite but itself as infinite as well, because it is by this act of realization that the infinite is infinitely enriched. Apocalyptic personhood is the fundamental expression of this enrichment, and the various realizations of such personhood, for instance, in the person of the musical genius, disclose the genuine nature of infinity as revealed in Christianity. By the end of the eighteenth century, music was often considered as a revelation from another world and the composer as the oracle of this revelation. It is undeniable that some of the greatest composers of the history of music lived in that age, or in the decades immediately thereafter, composers belonging to the most influential figures of the history of art. Perhaps the three greatest composers of the nineteenth century were Beethoven, Liszt, and Wagner.91 Beethoven was the first to be considered by his contemporaries a sort of inspired figure with a music exceeding all previous achievements; indeed, a sort of oracle. Liszt was not only a celebrated genius of piano playing but also a transcendental figure whose dedication to the Church led him to the Franciscan order in which he became a tertiary in 1858 and received the minor orders in 1865. His art proved to be inseminating the music of subsequent generations of composers. Liszt repeatedly termed Wagner’s genius “divine” in his letters, and even if in some cases this may have been a polite formality of the romantic kind, the arguments in some of the letters lead us to the belief that Liszt in fact accepted that Wagner’s music was an expression of another order, that is, of God.92 Wagner suggested that the music of Beethoven was “a revelation from another world.”93 With a similar gesture of seriousness, he wrote to Liszt in 1859:

90 J. W.  F. Schelling, The Philosophy of Art, ed. and trans. Douglas W. Stot (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), pp. 115–16. 91 It is fairly difficult to refer to any received view in this regard. If I  name these three composers I  do not deny the importance of a number of others, such as Brahms, Mendelsohn, Bruckner, Berlioz, Verdi, and so on. 92 “My sympathy for you and my admiration of your divine genius are surely too earnest and genuine to let me overlook their necessary consequences.” Liszt to Wagner in 1852, in Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt 1854–1861, vol. 1, ed. Francis Hueffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 227. 93 Quoted by Mark Evan Bonds, Absolute Music, p. 240.

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It is natural that you are too great, too noble, too beautiful, for our dear, gossipy Germany, and that you appear to the people like a god, whose splendour they are not accustomed to and not inclined to bear.94

Liszt himself, both in appearance and dedication, never conceived his work as a musician in any other terms that serving God with his inspiration which he believed he received from God. Beethoven and Wagner, in turn, were less committed to formal religion. Wagner nevertheless, in his musical creativity, intended to found a new era not only in music but also in culture. Their personality, together with all the known and unknown weaknesses, emerged as towering figures of art, figures realizing a new type of personhood. The musical genius represented not only a profession but more importantly an entirely new understanding of human activity and its relation to history and culture. The main feature of this personality is its openness to infinity. In Beethoven’s symphonies, it is the stormy, the gigantic that is expressed in its endeavor to reach and explore unknown dimensions of the human spirit. In Liszt, the striving for infinity takes the form of an unparalleled musical sophistication which goes hand in hand with a plasticity of characterization and a dramatic unity of different forms, especially in his symphonic poems. Wagner’s enormous oeuvre may be considered as the fulfillment of the development of Western music and the opening of a new era of experimentation. Their striving for infinity, nevertheless, was not an empty desire which can never be fulfilled, but a striving that had a real fulfillment in the creation of concrete works of art and an entire culture based on principles strongly different from the previous age.95 However, the real fulfillment is not merely an artistic production; it is rather the fulfillment of personhood. This personhood is at the same time an openness to something new and not yet experienced. The realism of this striving is embodied in this openness to the “future,” and yet this future is not a chronological phase but a new dimension of reality. This future is preexistent in the striving and in its genuine forms, in the great works of art of the composer. As opposed to the previous age, this age and its personality lacked the optical and the space-like as its fundamental orientation. Instead, it is the acoustic, the inner, and the dynamically infinite which comes to the fore in their work. It is this exceptional surge of musical productivity which grounds a new understanding of personhood. As a consequence of Protestant piety, which made

94 Francis Hueffer, ed., Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt 1854–1861, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 290. 95 The debate between the representatives of “absolute music” as opposed to “program music” was not about the autonomous reality of music but rather its function in the world. Representatives of program music, such as Liszt, argued that music has an historical and social role and its autonomous reality is to serve the common cause. Thus program music proposed musical pieces written with the intention of illustration, meditation on certain themes, or rethinking literary works. In this way, program music, supported by Wagner as well, held that music must be an integral part of culture.

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private homes centers of religious life, middle-class families in Germany and Central Europe became well-versed in music. This evolution resulted in a general musical culture unparalleled in earlier ages, and it led to the emergence of a new understanding of the faithful subject, the human being, personhood in the particular and general senses. Most importantly, this musical culture shifted the optical understanding of personhood to an acoustic one with an emphasis on the inner infinite of the soul, as it were. However, the most important effect of the new musical culture was not a changing perception of the hierarchy of sensory organs. A more significant consequence was the deeper understanding of subjectivity in terms of its openness to the musical realm. Just as the development of music left behind its mimetic and illustrative character and evolved into a new intellectual whole, listening to this music—Bach’s fugues, for instance—created a new kind of sensitivity. Listening to music is not only a sensory activity, but also an affective and intellectual activity. More than that, the reception of music has always been a synthetic and integrated activity in which sensory perception, affectivity, and intellectual insight joined together to create a new kind of discernment, that is, “feeling” (Gefühl). Feeling, however, was not about a subjective emotion, but rather a new awareness of the infinite, expressed in the various pieces of composers. As Goethe wrote in the Faust, “Feeling is all,” yet he did not mean a subjective affection but rather the new means of awareness of something more fundamental and more important than prima facie reality. The emergence and specification of this awareness entailed the deeper understanding of personhood and also a more fundamental understanding of human subjectivity. This subjectivity was most importantly defined by its overall openness to infinity; and also by its openness to the newness belonging to the core of reality. The musical genius embodies this dynamics, the creative openness to the birth of the new, and the very form of this openness is self-dedication, even selfsacrifice. This sacrifice is nevertheless not performed for the sake of the “heights,” the “heavens,” the optical and the external. It is not about “exteriority” (as Lévinas would have it). It is about the creative layer that lies beneath the visible and becomes expressed in the acoustic realm. It is about the tacit dimension that comes to the fore in the form of music. The musical genius, thus, is perceived as the harbinger of a deeper and fuller, a more concrete personality in its self-sacrificing drive to give shape to the new. In this sense, the musical genius is connected to the Eternal-Feminine of the Faust that restores what is lost in a new form by the act of self-sacrifice. We need to see these developments in the context of apocalyptic phenomenology. As shown, this phenomenology describes the emergence of a personhood that synthesizes suffering and glory in such a way that a fundamental newness is created out of the structures of this personhood. In the history of art and literature, we can easily prove the power of this point. As, for instance, Spengler wrote, When German music was at its culmination, this art penetrated also into lyric poetry (German lyric, that is, for in French it is impossible) and gave rise to a whole series of tiny masterpieces, from Goethe’s Urfaust to Hölderlin’s last

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poems—passages of a few lines apiece, which have never yet been noticed, let  alone collected, but include nevertheless whole worlds of experience and feeling.96

In the context of a philosophical theology, the importance of this point consists in this that what was identified as apocalyptic personhood in the development of revelation can be grasped in certain models which have emerged throughout the centuries. The musical genius is one of these models and perhaps the most important one. This is not only because Wagner proposed an overall synthesis of the arts, and not even because his music, but Central European music in general, triggered the birth of new musical cultures throughout the world which dominate our experience till today.97 Rather, the model of the musical genius is important, because it can be identified as a unique kind, a sui generis entity, the analysis of which leads us to the better understanding not only of the essential identities of the phenomenological context but also their influence on further developments. The Lamb of God, Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, the emergence of the musical genius are part and parcel of the same reality which I  term “apocalyptic personhood.” The musical genius is a synthesis of all these developments. It integrates Augustine’ confessional model, Pascal’s fragmented existence, the Faustian synthesis, and the distance embodied in the visage. We may think of Nietzsche’s critique of Wagner to see the negative side of the musical genius in order to understand that apocalyptic personhood is a complex development which has its shadows and lights, ups and down, frailties and strengths. What the notion of apocalyptic personhood offers in this respect is the unity of these factors in a radical openness to new developments. Inasmuch as the musical genius is by definition the creator of newness, he accomplishes the essence of apocalyptic personhood as the expression of newness. This newness is fundamentally spiritual, because the composer produces a work of art a priori in such a way that it can be implemented in a variety of musical conceptions and in a number of times. Yet the composer achieves a synthesis of the spiritual and the real, because the work of music is essentially bound to its concrete performance. And while it is produced fundamentally by the composer, it is performed by a community which entails the musicians as well as the audience in their physical reality. In this way, the musical genius is the creator of a work of art of individuals and communities, and through the open possibility of musical interpretations and the various receptions by several audiences, the composer is at the same time the producer of an historical context. In other words, the musical

96 Spengler, The Decline of the West, p. 286. 97 This history of producing significant music in Central-Europe is still alive. For instance, Franz Liszt performed his famous Missa solemnis in Esztergom in 1851. After 165 years, Gergely Bogányi performed some of his pieces in the same Basilica “in the memory of Franz Liszt.” Bogányi played his newly developed Bogányi Piano which seems to be of a special importance for classical piano playing in the future.

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genius is a strong expression of the fundamental principle of apocalyptic personhood as the realization of radical revelation in the concrete settings of an historical situation. However, the legacy of the musical genius is open to decline. It is part and parcel of the historical context that such a context is produced, developed, and reaches its decline. Being in the context of an historical trajectory belongs to the essence of the concrete expressions of apocalyptic personhood. Just as such a context leads to the emergence of personalities characteristic of the given pattern, in due course of time it leads to the emergence of personalities of decline, loss of originality and creative power, and finally even to misuse. The history of European classical music shows some examples of such a rise and fall, use and misuse, to which there always belong the suitable kinds of representatives. In a nutshell, Carl Orff produced a musical synthesis which proleptically shows the coming explosion of popular “beat” music with its extraverted mechanizations and rhythmic frenzy. While Orff can still be thought of as a significant composer of classical music, the most important representatives of popular music have shown an inventiveness of a less sophisticated order. The creative musical genius has been substituted by the showman and the contemplative creator of musical newness by the actors of popular masquerades. Apocalyptic personhood, in other words, can be developed and undeveloped, used and misused, and it belongs to the nature of an historical trajectory that genuine production becomes substituted by imitations of imitations. This latter development is properly introduced when the reality of apocalyptic personhood is questioned and even denied, or again when the genuine nature of infinity, the very source of newness, is interpreted in a way which counts to be the denial of its reality. Apocalyptic personhood, let us recall, is the ultimate expression of radical revelation in which radical personhood is essentially involved. Apocalyptic personhood does not eliminate suffering and failure, but integrates them into itself in such a way that, in a new form, the fact of revelation is disclosed and its reality can be unambiguously perceived. In our approach, nevertheless, these descriptions serve merely to identify the phenomena. By means of the work of identification, we may arrive at an understanding, nonproportional in its nature, of the reality of divine revelation. For it is indeed in the focus of apocalyptic personhood in which the reality of divine revelation is decided, and it is the ad intra and ad extra dimensions of the same personhood in which such a decision is already fulfilled.

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Chapter 7 T H E C ATHOLICIT Y OF R EV E L AT ION

1. On Overtures One of the enigmatic words Plato uses in his dialogues is προοίμιον, that is, prelude or overture. The use of the term is fairly consistent in the Platonic texts, yet the meaning can shift so that sometimes the “prelude,” at other times “preamble” or in general “overture” seem to be the best translation in the given context. There are three important texts in which Plato applies the term. The first is about the problems in rhetoric. As Socrates points out, First, I believe, there is the Preamble with which a speech must begin. . . . Second come the Statement of Facts and the Evidence of Witnesses concerning it; third, Indirect Evidence; fourth, Claims to Plausibility. And I believe at least that an excellent Byzantine word-wizard adds Confirmation and Supplementary Confirmation.1

In Laches 179 we find a similar use:  “prelude” appears as an introduction to a longer speech. However, the introduction becomes interesting already here, because it is about παρρησία, that is, speaking freely or openly, one of the main privileges of ancient Athens. Plato felt it important to offer a prelude on the freedom of speech, on sincerity or frankness in matters philosophical. The meaning of a prelude becomes stricter when defined in the Republic. It refers to the introductory part of the sciences. This part consists in a short summary of the most important points of the Republic concerning the knowledge of the unhypothetical (ἀνυπόθετος), the absolutely first principle of everything. In Glaucon’s summary we find the essence of a prelude as follows: I understand, if not yet adequately (for in my opinion you’re speaking of an enormous task), that you want to distinguish the intelligible part of that which is, the part studied by the science of dialectic, as clearer than the part studied by the so-called sciences, for which their hypotheses are first principles. And although those who study the objects of these sciences are forced to do so by means of thought rather than sense perception, still, because they do not go back 1 Phaedrus 266d, in: Plato, The Complete Works, p. 543.

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to a genuine first principle, but proceed from hypotheses, you don’t think that they understand them, even though, given such a principle, they are intelligible. And you seem to me to call the state of the geometers thought but not understanding, thought being intermediate between opinion and understanding.2

The prelude thus contains a critical part concerning the hypothetical procedures of geometers and mathematicians, and a positive part which points out the main task of dialectics, that is, the elevation (“an enormous task”) to the ultimate principle of everything, the unconditional. In this respect, Glaucon distinguishes the three kinds of knowledge we know from other writings of Plato, namely, understanding (νοῦς), thought (διάνοια), and opinion (δόξα). As to the third meaning of προοίμιον, the prelude has again a different context in the Laws. Here prelude refers to the introductory part of the laws and thus can be termed a preamble. There needs to be such an introduction, because the subjects of a state must be protected from, and prepared for, the harshness of the higher laws by an introductory and kindly persuasive part. In the text Plato offers a word play: “nomos” (νόμος) can mean both tune and law at the same time, thus making the meaning of a prelude and a preamble consonant: I want to make the point that the spoken word, and in general all compositions that involve using the voice, employ “preludes” (a sort of limbering up, so to speak), and that these introductions are artistically designed to aid the coming performance. For instance, the “nomes” of songs to the harp, and all other kinds of musical composition, are preceded by preludes of fantastic elaboration. But in the case of the real “nomes,” the kind we call “administrative,” nobody has ever so much as breathed the word “prelude” or composed one and given it to the world; the assumption has been that such a thing would be repugnant to nature. But in my opinion the discussion we’ve had indicates that it is perfectly natural; and this means that the laws which seemed “double” when I described them a moment ago are not really “double” in the straightforward sense the term suggests: it’s just that they have two elements, “law” and “preface to law.”3

As Eva Brann pointed out in The Music of the Republic, Plato’s dealing with philosophy is permeated by his references to musical themes.4 The motive of the “prelude” or overture belongs to this general orientation. The prelude or overture, thus, has a complex meaning including frankness or straightforwardness, the systematic

2 Republic 511c–d, in: Plato, The Complete Works, p. 1132. 3 Laws 722d–c, in: Plato, The Complete Works, p. 1408. 4 Cf. Eva Brann, The Music of the Republic:  Essays on Socrates’ Conversations and Plato’s Writings (Philadelphia:  1st Paul Dry Books, 2004). J. B. Kennedy’s discovery of the “secret musical code” of the Republic is also a confirmation of the crucial importance of music in Plato. See Kennedy, The Musical Structure of Plato’s Dialogues (Durham: Acumen Press, 2011).

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arrangement of a philosophical epistemology pointing to the realization of the unconditional, and finally the understanding of a prelude in terms of the preamble to the “administrative” or higher-order laws. In all aspects, the preamble or overture has an introductory yet systematic shape offering not only a general outline of a methodology but also the main points of a content which needs further clarification in what comes after the overture. In this general sense, the most appropriate translation of προοίμιον seems to be indeed “overture”; προοίμιον opens the genuine work of dialectics, “conversation,” that is, philosophy’s main concern. Just as dialectics or conversation is in a sense musical, that is, it cannot be realized without the assistance of the “muses” (that is why it is put into the context of music), its systematic introduction is properly termed an overture. The overture, let me repeat, is straightforward, systematic, and has the function of an overall opening. In the history of European music, the role of the overture followed, interestingly, the main lines of Plato’s meanings. The great age of musical overtures coincides with the explosion-like development of classical music from the eighteenth century. Even if the history of overture reaches back to the sixteenth century, the most outstanding works were produced by Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and Liszt in a timespan of just about a hundred years. Already in Idomeneo, his first important opera, Mozart composed an overture “in beauty and power far in advance of any previous work of the kind.”5 The “genial and graceful vivacity” of Mozart’s overtures grew into his masterpiece of the kind, the overture to The Magic Flute. This overture offers not merely an introduction to the opera, but rather a genial summary which gives the audience a distinct musical experience containing the whole of the opera in a short piece. This whole is more than the anticipation of the themes and motifs of the main piece of music. It is an independent whole which contains, in a sense, more than the opera itself. Through its holistic character it opens up an autonomous word of music. The form of symphony, which was being shaped during the same time, was deeply influenced by the unique development of the overture and incorporated the structure of the overture into the first symphonic movement. Beethoven followed Mozart in putting a unique emphasis on overtures. He composed several overtures to his relatively early piece Fidelio, out of which Overture No 3. or the Leonora Overture appears to realize “the highest possible point in dramatic expression.”6 Yet it may be added that his overture to Egmont, as the fulfillment of his “middle period,” reaches even higher. Evaluations are certainly influenced by experience and the relevant historical and cultural situation. After all the sufferings of the twentieth century, the Egmont-overture appears today as the highest expression of suffering, heroism, and elevation in Beethoven’s oeuvre. It puts forward a synthesis of the structure of heroism (with respect to the historical figure of the Count of Egmont) such that the slow premeditation part is

5 The quotation here and in the subsequent sentences are from Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 3, ed. J. A. Fuller-Maitland (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1911), p. 580. 6 Fuller-Maitland, Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, p. 581.

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followed by the musical surge pronouncing the decision to exclude the possibility of lèse majesté. Just as Egmont received his death sentence with a remarkable dignity, the music focuses on the form of dignity and offers its unique musical interpretation. The Egmont-overture is the dramatic celebration of dignity in a musical form which was born just about the time when Kant realized the importance of human dignity as inner worth, Würde.7 The musical piece does not offer only a description. Even those who do not know about the fate of Lamoral, Count of Egmont, are overwhelmed by the unparalleled power of the main theme of music expressing the refusal of opportunism and the faithfulness to the principles of his life. The majesty in style, the undivided preeminence in developing the slow themes into an overall and dramatic fluctuation of the main melody makes this music of Beethoven uniquely memorable. Richard Wagner’s overtures follow the line of reinterpreting the form and function of this musical piece. The overture to The Flying Dutchman is perhaps the greatest achievement after the period of Beethoven’s overtures. Unexplainably, it makes the impression that the audience is part and parcel of a situation which integrates elements of a stormy sea, peaceful countryside, sincere affection, and a network of dramatic complications, a new emerging world of light and shadow, darkness and hazy sunshine. The overture does not only offer an introduction. It is rather a systematic musical summary of the main elements amalgamated into an autonomous whole which outlines the main features of the legendary tragic figure, the Flying Dutchman, and his ultimate salvation by innocent love. Just as the opera is symbolic—we should say here paradigmatic8—and points to a dimension in reality which has an ideal status, the overture transfers the audience into this ideal word of a new beginning. The core element of the music, the “Flying Dutchman’s Motive,” is certainly one of the greatest motives in the history of modern music. Its simplicity is equally its greatness:

One may interpret this motive in various ways, but for me this is not like a voice calling in distress. Rather, it is a motive of a new birth, hope, elevation, just as the Flying Dutchman and Senta are elevated into the heaven at the end of the opera. They stand for the power of love which breaks the curse of the devil by the fully unpredictable, free self-sacrifice. The overture delineates the drama of the decision of love, while the dramatic development is materialized above all in the motives of

7 Kant’s related work, Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, appeared in 1793; Beethoven composed the Egmont in 1809–10. 8 See Chapter 1, section 6, above.

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the sea storm. The innocence of Senta’s personality and her irrational dedication to a cause, in which her part may be just the result of an accident, are added together to create the context of an ultimate decision, a decision of the heart “which has its own reasons reason does not know.” This decision leads to the death of the young lady, and yet salvation and eternal life are secured precisely by her self-dedication. Liszt further developed the genre of the overture and introduced, as his own invention, the genre of the symphonic poem. It may be sufficient here to point out that the importance of Liszt’s symphonic poems, in themselves unusually complicated works, lies in the development of the symphony, based on the well-formed genre of the overture, into the pieces of Liszt’s so-called program music. Program music, as opposed to the absolute music of the old school, opened the way to further developments in music by the end of the nineteenth century and thus influenced the experimental spirit of early-twentieth-century music. This function of Liszt’s symphonic poems, nevertheless, may not lessen the value of the symphonic poems themselves, perhaps most importantly his Prometheus, as great works of art of the nineteenth century. The extraordinary rhythmic and orchestral nature of the Prometheus, which made its debut in 1850, showed Liszt as an important representative of musical circles attempting to find ways to a new language and conception of the nature and function of music. The genre of overture, in this way, determined indeed an opening to the further evolution of the classical period. This was not the result of an abstract “absolute music,” detached from the facts of the surrounding world, but that of a participatory openness to the surrounding world of culture and history. The musical overture as a subject belongs here to the problem of apocalyptic personhood as represented in the model of the musical genius. The musical genius is indeed a special expression of apocalyptic personhood, but not the only expression. Already in the arts in general we can identify developments which may be used as models. A comparative description of the development of art, which we find in the work of such important historians as, for instance, Jacob Burkhardt or Arnold Toynbee, gives us enough material to discover the evolution of various models and their connections to one another in different aspects of culture. Nevertheless, the peculiar history of the musical overture has a special advantage in the present context: It shows how an element of a certain genre reaches first a relative independence and then it contributes to the emergence of developments leading over to new possibilities. A given genre is often identified as absolute and self-contained, and a kind of conservatism tends to believe that a genre, an intellectual form, a complexity of a tradition may be reduced to the actual form we are accustomed to. But the actual form itself is the result of innovations which became classified as standard only after difficult controversies. A given form of a whole is always a result and is defined by a multidimensional dynamism both in the whole itself and in its external relations. This dynamism makes it possible that a given whole, say a given complexity of traditions identified as a whole, may be adjusted to the changing circumstances and nurture in itself new forces to change its shape in accordance with the given historical, social, cultural conditions. It would be more precise to say that the importance of the external circumstances is

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subordinate to the nature of the whole itself. The whole is such that it is formed by an inner dynamism to actualize itself in various forms under various conditions. At this point we can recall what Plato said of the double nature of laws in the quotation above. Plato suggests that, externally, there appears to be two laws, one identified as a preamble (overture) and the other as the main body of laws. But he critically notes as well that in reality these two realms are actually one and the two kinds of law are only two layers of the same whole. Plato had in mind his understanding of the eternal law as opposed to the law of the actual society or also the way eternal laws may be presented in the framework of philosophy. The introductory parts are changing, that is, they can be improved and adjusted to the circumstances and the audience. The eternal realm of laws, however, remains the same; the state must be based a fortiori on the eternal realm. More than two millennia after Plato’s work we need to revise this approach. The whole of the cosmos and its demiurge with its eternal laws, which Plato presupposed, do not seem plausible any longer. The historical consciousness implanted in humanity by the eschatological understanding of Christianity came to interpret the eternal as closely connected to the historical realm. In a Trinitarian perspective, we have come to understand the immanent and the economic Trinity as related to one another in fundamental ways. It also seems that the physical laws of the universe are themselves dependent on more fundamental events, such as the cyclical reorganization of the universe, the nature of which may not be conceived without a proper understanding of the series of cosmological cycles. In other words, Plato’s original hierarchy of the preamble and the eternal body of laws needs a reinterpretation in which the preamble, the overture is moved into the focus and the eternal, the overall, the ultimate framework of reality is understood with respect to what Plato calls an overture. With the terminology I am using here we can say that the nature of the whole proves to be the nature of the overture. What appeared to be secondary or introductory moves to the center and defines the whole in its entirety. The secondary, the introductory, the ad extra dimension moves into the center and redefines the whole of which it was only a contingent expression. Incarnation, death, and resurrection, the main phases of Jesus’s life, appeared originally only as a preamble to the eternal mysteries of the Trinity. Yet they have changed our understanding of these mysteries and proved to be decisive in the reality of the ad intra dimension. With respect to the problem of revelation, it must be similarly emphasized that the question is about the intimate connection between “theology and economy.” It is not merely “a blunt error if one devolved the economy to a secondary rank,”9 but rather economy must be conceived to be the focus so that we may better understand the nature of “theology,” that is to say, divine revelation. It belongs to revelation that it is revealed both in the ad intra and the ad extra dimensions. We have to understand the connections of the two inasmuch as possible, that is, nonproportionally. In our work of understanding, nevertheless, we need to concentrate on

9 Emery, The Trinitarian Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 414.

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the ad extra as it is related to the ad intra, and we need to understand the ad intra in its relation to the ad extra. This is what the overview of the models of apocalyptic personhood above all teaches us:  in apocalyptic personhood it is always the fundamental correlation between the ad extra and the ad intra which is decisive. This correlation originates in the ad intra dimension; but it is defined and determined in the ad extra dimension. Apocalyptic personhood is always such that it is realized in its aspects: the Kingdom of God, the Son of Man, in the Resurrection, Pentecost, Conversion, Stoning, and the Lamb of God. The same personhood is modeled, as we saw, in such figures as Augustine, Pascal, Faust, or the visage of Lévinas. Further ad extra poles of correlation can be added to these lists, and a more detailed overview of the models and their aspects can be developed. However, it is already clear that what is fundamentally decisive is the correlation itself. The nature of this correlation consists in its fundamental openness to the poles included in the correlation. This openness is what I intended to point out primarily by offering my considerations about the genre of the overture. In a paradigmatic fashion, the examples and the development of the overture show the intrinsic openness of the whole to intrinsic and extrinsic changes. The musical whole, as we saw, is nevertheless just one aspect of the whole of apocalyptic personhood, and the apocalyptic personhood and its models instantiate radical revelation. It is thus radical revelation which is centrally defined by its inner “overture,” opening, expressed in freedom. There is no other way to conceive appropriately divine revelation than the way of understanding it, even if nonproportionally, as the realization of openness. This is the way we need to understand the meaning of “catholicity”:  both in itself and in its ad extra relations, catholicity needs a conservation and a rethinking, indeed an openness to newness as it is prefigured both in the philosophical and the musical motive of an overture.

2. Architectonics In what follows, I consider the relationship between catholicity and some important notions in the present work. It is critical to underline that “catholicity” has a specific meaning here. In the perspective of a nonstandard radical philosophical theology, catholicity is understood accordingly, that is, in a nonstandard, radical, and philosophico-theological way. I do not aspire to enter the realm of theology properly so-called. When I still use theologically relevant notions, contexts, and authors, I look at them in the present perspective. Thus, for instance, Hans Urs von Balthasar in a small book on catholicity points out that “Catholic” is a quality, that is: It means totality and universality, and the understanding of it presupposes a particular human attitude of mind and heart. It is true that the catholicity of the Catholic Church is primarily a revelation and communication of the divine totality; it is true that the acceptance of this revelation by men is primarily the

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work of grace; all the same, it is possible for an historical period to be stretched beyond its limit by this grace. This seems to be the case in the period in which we live. For us, efficacy resides in the part, in the party; the alternative is a tolerant and inefficient cosmopolitanism.10

In other words, while catholicity is encompassing, its efficacy resides in the party. This approach may raise the question whether the part is meaningful at all without the whole, or whether the part’s efficacy can indeed reside in the part itself and not rather in its relation to the whole. The present perspective, as suggested, attempts to avoid partisanship; it takes Christianity in its total significance. While it certainly emphasizes the importance of catholicity, it does not enter the realm of ecclesiological, not to mention denominational, questions, because such a diversion would negatively affect its theoretical character. “Catholicity” comes from the word “catholic” (καθολικός) which is the adjective form of the expression “in general, concerning the whole as such” (καθόλου). Catholicity is about the whole. The concrete meaning of the term, already present in the writings of Tertullian, was “generally accepted” as opposed to the view of minorities concerning the matters of the Church. However, the word ὅλος has a specific meaning, pointed out among others by Plato in the Theaetetus: the whole and the sum are different notions inasmuch as the whole is not only a sum of the parts but a qualitatively higher unity. The whole of a word is composed of syllables arranged in a certain way. If, however, the syllables are arranged differently, the meaning disappears. The whole offers more than just a summary, and this meaning cannot be derived merely from the parts.11 Wholes have the peculiar property of being autonomous and possessing a certain gestalt the characteristics of which are not shared by the parts. We can say that wholes possess emergent properties not present in the parts, just as liquidity is not present in the hydrogen or the oxygen atoms. Put together in a certain way, hydrogen and oxygen produce the water molecule with the characteristic property of liquidity at certain temperatures and pressures. Similarly, the whole in Plato’s sense has emergent properties or, to put it differently, a characteristic not present in its parts and moments. I find this feature important in our notion of catholicity as well. There is first of all a grammatical element in the expression of καθόλου which needs to be looked at. Κατά, the prefix in the Greek original of “catholic,” has a complex meaning-structure. If the preposition is used with a genitive, the basic meaning is “downward motion.” Καθόλου would be then “down in the whole” or “immersed” in the whole. This meaning is important, thus we need to return to this point below. Κατά also means “along,” and using this meaning (still with the genitive) the result is “along the whole,” such as “along circles” (κατά κύκλων). Further meanings include “towards,” “by,” in a hostile sense “against” (such as the Greek

10 Hans Urs von Balthasar, In the Fullness of Faith: On the Centrality of the Distinctively Catholic, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1975), p. 13. 11 Plato, Theaetetus 204b.

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title of Irenaeus’s Adversus haereses, “Against the heresies” is Κατὰ αἱρέσεων). The same preposition also has the meaning “in respect of, concerning” something. We received the meaning of “catholicity” from this latter sense. Καθόλου thus means “concerning the whole,” “in general,” or “completely, entirely.” However, we need to be aware of all the associations of the expression when we want to understand it more properly. It is useful to have an eye on the various meanings of the preposition, because these peripheral meanings certainly defined in a certain sense the meaning of “general.” On the basis of the preposition, the whole in question should be seen as that in which one has to immerse so as to know it. Or again, one has to see its circumstances in order to understand its situation. Further, we need not understand this whole merely as a complete and closed given, but rather as something we need to work for. The immediate meaning of καθόλου as “general” needs also to be better understood, because the generality in question is not only geographical or statistical. It is also a logical generality, as Aristotle uses the expression, “the general” as opposed to “the particular.” We know that Aristotle considered the problem of general terms in a more complex fashion than just a prima facie logical entity. He was certainly aware of the higher meaning of generalness, even if he did not accept Plato’s theory of the ideas in its original form. But Aristotle insisted on the primal importance of the general as the form which shapes a given material. In this sense, the general, τὸ καθόλου, is an autonomous, dynamic, and unified force determining the plurality of matter. In Catholicism, Richard P. McBrien argues that catholicity can be best characterized not by an either/or but rather by a both/and: It is not nature or grace, but graced nature; not reason or faith, but reason illumined by faith; not law or Gospel, but law inspired by the Gospel; not Scripture or tradition, but normative tradition within Scripture; not faith or works, but faith issuing in works and works as expressions of faith; not authority or freedom, but authority in the service of freedom; not the past versus the present, but the present in continuity with the past; not stability or change, but change in fidelity to stable principle, and principle fashioned or refined in response to change; not unity or diversity, but unity in diversity, and diversity which prevents uniformity, the antithesis of unity.12

We must nevertheless see a further point in this respect, the point concerning the nature of wholes. It may not be sufficient to state that a whole is a “both” or an “and.” Rather, the whole as an autonomous structure has its own overall quality as a whole, just as already Plato pointed out. In this sense, the whole of catholicity is a dynamic unity open to a perpetual change always in the given form. There is an ideal form of catholicity which has characterized its empirical instances throughout the centuries. This form is the real bearer of catholicity in its visible

12 Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism (Minneapolis: Winston, 1980), pp. 1173–4.

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instantiation. Yet this instantiation is permeated by the essential dynamism of the ideal form. I propose therefore to understand catholicity in this complex way: certainly not as geographical or statistical generality, but rather as an autonomous and meaningful whole that should be deeply understood, experienced, circumscribed, and also seen in the context of a genuine generality, a generality entailing its own particulars in a way which has its own emergent properties. The whole is always an open dynamism between the particular and the general, matter and form, shadow and idea, the “sum” of the parts and the “whole” as a genuine fullness. The whole is action, it is in constant motion. Yet this motion has a reactive affect as well, and thus the form of the whole is changing: the whole cannot be understood as a static and rigid sum, but rather as a whole in the context of its various instantiations. Catholicity, thus, needs to be understood in this way if it wants to realize its own characteristic and avoid falling into particularism, not to say a philosophical and theological sectarianism. This understanding of the autonomous and dynamically emerging whole is the ontological perspective in which a nonstandard radical philosophical theology situates itself and works, along this line, for the ever fuller realization of catholicity in and through the problems I have raised in the present work. There is no need to isolate a denominational meaning of catholicity in this context, because—even if one acknowledges the value of such a denomination— the genuine nature of thinking is similar to the overture in the history of music: it aspires to be an introduction, yet at the same time it offers the possibility of opening a vista in which the whole appears in a new form. I term this general yet open, overarching and still multifarious, dynamic and changing form of catholicity architectonics. The expression “architectonics” is of Aristotelian origin. In the Nicomachian Ethics, Aristotle terms his own discipline, this time “politics,” “master art” (τέχνη ἀρχιτεκτονική).13 The master art is the overarching discipline containing its subordinate sciences or arts. Politics, as an architectonic structure, is open to the ultimate, the divine, which simultaneously ensures its unity and its empirical plurality. Kant took over the expression and applied it to the nature of the human mind: the mind is architectonic, that is to say, it is based on a systematic view of hierarchically arranged structures.14 The ideals and ideas of the mind determine its schematisms in such a way that the plurality of the matter of experience is hierarchically unified along the lines of the underlying structure. What is architectonical is overarching such that the structure and its moments, the mind and its contents are related to one another in a dynamic way and always in the framework of the unity of the “I think.” In a similar sense we can say that in catholicity the architectonical nature of the mind, the hierarchy of sciences, or even reality itself are intimately integrated. Catholicity needs to be architectonic in the architectonical sense, that is, in the sense of reality itself. Catholicity keeps its historical meaning coming from the

13 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a. 14 Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, B 860/A 832.

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prima facie sense of τὸ καθόλου. Yet it is enlarged into the sense of a more overarching structure. As suggested, this structure is dynamic and open. It is a structure of the capacity of producing newness, because not only any conclusion of premises is something new, but any action of the whole defining matter, any application of the general determining the particular is the birth of a new form, a new concept, a new understanding, a new context, and by the same token a new generality of such particulars. Here again we see the principle of correlation at work: the general and the particular are defined with respect to one another in the structure of Ineinandersein such that the fundamental feature of the whole as open to newness is and remains center of this structure. David C. Schindler defines “the catholicity of reason” in a fourfold fashion: Reason is essentially catholic—καθ’ ὅλον—“according to the whole”—in four senses:  in terms of its principles, (1)  it is defined by its relation to being as a whole, and (2) it involves the whole person in its specific operation; and in terms of its exercise, (3) it always grasps the (whole as) universal, on the one hand, and (4)  the (whole as) concrete, composite being or individual thing in each particular act, on the other hand, even if it thematizes only one or the other in any given instance.15

Schindler grasps some of the points I delineated above concerning the meaning of catholicity. He writes about reason’s catholicity, but this is precisely about catholicity as such. For the being as a whole is catholic in its relationship to the particular, and the whole person is catholic in its relationship to its acts entailing the general and the particular. Nevertheless, I would also emphasize that there is a correlation among these moments, and the nature of this relationship is the incessant renewal of the whole. This is the point I especially underline here: catholicity, in accordance with the nature of wholes, entails a continuous renewal. Already the original terms and contents I elucidated above, taken in their traditional meaning, point to the fact of the continuous and unavoidable renewal as the central characteristic of catholicity. This does not mean any rupture with the body of tradition. Catholicity is called just so because it entails its traditions as a whole and keeps them in its continuous renewal in the context of ever changing circumstances. The massive body of traditions serves as the material of the original form which uses this material in reshaping the tradition in its identity and openness. To illustrate this character of catholicity, that is, its perpetual self-renewing feature, let me refer to the architectural history of church building. Architecture is “architectonic” (the two words are derived from the same Greek expression) and it conveys the unity of identity and change I attribute to the notion of catholicity.

15 D.C. Schindler, The Catholicity of Reason (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013), p. 3. However, while Augustine writes that “Catholic” is derived from καθ’ ὅλον, the grammatical genealogy points rather to καθόλου. See Augustine, Contra litteras Petiliani libri III, liber secundus, 38.91 (Patrologia Latina, 43:292).

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Since I cannot offer a detailed overview of this rich history, I refer only to the fact that great epochs of church architecture always integrated traditional architectural elements, changing proportions of buildings, new technologies, and a continuously renewed iconography. Just compare the ancient building of the Pantheon in Rome with parts of the Santa Maria Maggiore, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul with the cathedral in Canterbury, or the Notre Dame of Paris with the Karlskirche in Vienna, or again the Frauenkirche in Dresden with the basilica in Esztergom. As opposed, for instance, to orthodox architecture, where the fundamental forms have remained nearly the same throughout the centuries, in Catholic architecture a continuous and important change has been characteristic in forms, materials, and structures.16 Nevertheless, there is a common element in this variety, an element I  term the church-form. The church-form contains three important features which is expressed both internally and externally: The central arrangement of the parts of the building focused on the altar; the importance of the vertical axis leading to a second center, as it were, in some way above the altar; and the specific nature of such buildings which can be described as dysfunctional from the practical point of view. The first feature defines the center of the liturgy. The second feature symbolically opens the space to what is understood as the dimension of the divine. The third feature reveals the exclusion of average (“profane” as opposed to the “sacred”) human activities from the church space. The third one is a negative feature and yet it points to the importance of the sui generis nature of the building and its function as the ad extra realization of the divine. At the same time, the three features are connected to one another in an organic way, that is to say, in a way integrating the center below and the center above in the liturgical (practically dysfunctional) context. The two centers are open to one another and open to that which is signified by their relation. This interactive relation, expressed in space, defines the most distinctive mark of the church-form. Yet the church-form is still something more, because it entails the open unity of the various connections of the three features. Finally, the church-form is variously instantiated in buildings, and this difference in instantiation expresses again a peculiar feature of dynamic openness of the form.17

16 For an overview of the history of church building, see Johann Hinrich Claussen, Gottes Häuser, oder Die Kunst, Kirchen zu bauen und zu verstehen (München: Beck, 2010). 17 The obvious difference between the church-form and the form we find in a mosque consists in two important points: A mosque does not have the earthly center, the altar, as its first focus (the prayer niche or mihrab has only a distant similarity to the function of the altar). This feature agrees with the doctrinal difference between Christianity and Islam, the latter denying the possibility of the Incarnation. The second difference is the stronger social character of the mosque which makes it rather the place of a social gathering, prayer, and teaching as opposed to the transcendental character of the church-space I described. Yet the mosque is obviously the space of worship which makes many such buildings so noble and elevating.

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The church-form is centralized and yet relates the faithful to the divine. It is focused on the altar, yet offers a rich variety of peripheral arrangements. It invites and distances. It elevates and defines in the given context. The church-form is like the overture in music: it is an opening to something different and yet it summarizes an overarching synthesis. The church-form is spatial, the overture is musical, and yet they relate to one another in their openness and concentration of structures. The church-form is dysfunctional, and yet it elevates. The overture is autonomous and it makes possible something more. While the special position of the altar in Catholic churches was changed as a result of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council, the altar is still the focus of the church-form. It defines the context of the liturgy which, as we saw, offers a summary of revelation.18 From the mid-twentieth century onward, church architecture entered a new and experimental phase. La Corbusier’s chapel at Ronchamp (Notre Dame du Haut) and Oscar Niemeyer’s Metropolitan Cathedral of Our Lady of Aparecida are perhaps the two best known symptoms of the century-long search for a new implementation of the church-form. They attempt to reinterpret the traditional church-form in different ways. La Corbusier offers a free variation of biblical symbolism (referring to the form of an arc), and Niemeyer develops a new version of the concentric nature of the church-form (referring to the gesture of prayer). Nevertheless, neither of these buildings has proved to be architecturally decisive during the subsequent decades. During this period and up to our day, partially as a response to the lack of dominant styles, a rich variety of alternative conceptions emerged. One of them is realized in the Dominus Flevit Church on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem (designed and constructed by Antonio Barluzzi between 1953 and 1955). This church offers a reinterpretation of traditional forms in such a way that reminiscences of Romanesque and Gothic styles are recognizable, but the building offers a new synthesis of archaic, art nouveau, and contemporary features. The structural unity of the building—its massing— is impressive. Its geographical position on the Mount Olive—offering a bird’seye view of the city of Jerusalem behind the altar—is a uniquely successful embodiment of biblical symbolism. This holistic renewal of traditional forms, nevertheless, remained again without a considerable impact on the subsequent generations of architects. Another example of an attempt at renewing traditional elements in a modern conception is the plan of Imre Makovecz (1935–2011) to build an ecumenical church

18 See in the present work:  Chapter  2, section 6.  The position of the altar in postVatican II churches creates a problem for the entire liturgical tradition and makes the understanding of this tradition difficult if not impossible. On the one hand, in old church buildings there are very often two altars, the old and the new, which reflects the problem of an historical breach. On the other hand, the new position of the altar facing the faithful in the church reinterprets the role of the priest and the faithful at the same time, a reinterpretation theologically not yet sufficiently developed.

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in Budapest.19 The style is more traditional than the churches of La Corbusier or Niemeyer and recalls the Sagrada Familia of Gaudí in Barcelona, Spain. However, Makovecz imagined a central dome among the asymmetrically arranged towers and planned to connect the towers to the most important Christian denominations. The architect offered thereby an ecumenical conception and emphasized the underlying unity of the relevant traditions. Together with Gaudí, Makovecz belongs to the architects that see the possibility of the renewal of the church-form not in a structural change but rather in certain symbolical modifications. Gaudí and Makovecz certainly intended to offer a new interpretation of the traditional forms. But they did not see it appropriate to neglect the development of centurylong traditions and thus they offered their characteristic changes reflecting their understanding of the church-form and also the meaning of the lack of a unified church architecture.20 If we take the development of church architecture as a specific example of the changing identity of catholicity, we can say that, for the time being, we are still in the midst of experimentation. Even if the unity of traditions is kept in catholicity, a formal and external return to previous identities may not be advisable. We can think here of the neo-Gothic style of the late nineteenth century, which produced some fine buildings, such as the Votive Church in Vienna, perhaps the most beautiful example of neo-Gothic architecture.21 Yet the Gothic renewal did not contain a structural or intellectual synthesis; it used traditional elements constructed with new technologies. It produced buildings visibly isolated from the surrounding architecture of modern urban development. Certainly, it created aesthetic beauty, but it did not produce genuine architecture inseminating the subsequent epochs. In the context of an organically developing history of architectural forms, the recollection of previous forms always creates a hiatus both in architectural and intellectual terms. It is one thing to understand the essence of a tradition and quite another to implement this essence in forms reiterating the characteristics of a past age. It belongs to the nature of architectural development that we need to find organically connected forms and arrangements, always on the

19 According to public plans, the church will be built during the coming years. Buildings in a similar style were created by Makovecz, such as the Piliscsaba campus of Pázmány Péter Catholic University. 20 Another important architect of this kind is Barbara Bielecka who planned the Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń in Poland (construction was finished in 2004). However, this basilica is rather a recollection of earlier forms, combining neo-renaissance and neoclassical elements, and not a novel interpretation of traditional structures. As an opposite example, let me mention the Temppeliaukio Church in Helsinki, Finland. Designed by Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen and opened in 1969, the “Rock Church,” as it is called, embodies one of the most courageous attempts to create a new architectural conception, which is at the same time deeply rooted in Christian traditions with its cave-like formation. 21 The church was built by Emperor Franz Joseph after his attempted assassination in 1853 as the sign of gratitude for God. The church was dedicated in 1879.

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basis of the available technology and material, which express a new synthesis of tradition and modernity. This dynamic synthesis, always open to structural and specific newness, is what I find the most decisive in a general notion of catholicity as architectonic. In contemporary church architecture, of which Catholic architecture is an organic part, we find the expressions of a growing catholicity—catholicity in the sense I  just described. Compare only three contemporary churches to see this point: The Church of Light (Ibaraki, Japan), The Cathedral of the Northern Lights (Norway), and The Jubilee Church (Rome, Italy). These churches have been built by different denominations, but they have the common feature of searching for the new implementations of the traditional church-form. At the same time, they keep important elements of the church-form so that their central arrangement, transcendental opening, and practically dysfunctional nature are safeguarded. What is often described as “the universal approach to religion” in contemporary church building is, in my view, the expression of the genuine nature of catholicity. Just as Catholic architecture heralded important changes in the understanding of Christianity already in the early Middle Ages, or just as modern architecture found its way into the Catholic forms of church building at the beginning of the twentieth century, in a similar fashion we witness today a revolutionary transformation in architecture of all denominations. In this transformation, the denominational traditions are becoming less important as opposed to the growing significance of the common search for the new, overarching, and also plausible incarnation of the church-form. This change is catholic, that is, both universal and traditional. It indicates not only the development of church architecture but more importantly the changing understanding of the relationship between human personhood and divine revelation in accordance with shared experiences of contemporary humanity.22

3. Catholicity Catholicity means a sui generis whole which bears in itself the openness to renewal. Catholicity is an overture, a prelude, a symphony, or even a symphonic poem which opens up the richness of revelation in ever newer forms. This understanding is emphatically expressed in the variety of the church-form I just described. Radical revelation, as we saw, is understood as the direct and indirect selfrevelation of God expressing his absolute freedom. Direct revelation contains its own information about being God’s revelation. There is no mechanism or automatism in radical revelation, because it is dependent on freedom and received in

22 We must add that certain trends in contemporary mosque architecture point to the same direction; see, for instance, the Al Resala Mosque (London), the Mosque in Rijeka (Croatia), the Yeşil Vadi Mosque in Istanbul or the Cologne Central Mosque in Germany. This kind of architecture presents a real challenge to new designers of Christian churches.

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freedom. Freedom always entails the possibility of refusal, withdrawal, or denial. At the same time, radical revelation is such that it realizes itself by way of refusal, withdrawal, and denial. Just as indirect self-revelation realizes itself in radical personhood, radical revelation reveals the centrality of apocalyptic personhood, that is, the personhood involving and fulfilling the suffering of radical personhood. This account of revelation is already “catholic” in a general sense, but it has all the other aspects of catholicity I mentioned above. Radical revelation is catholic, because it is immersed in the economy of revelation inasmuch as it is nonproportionally possible. It is catholic, because it offers an overview of revelation along its reality, and it is equally catholic insofar as it equally points toward, and is defined by, revelation. The approach of a radical philosophical theology is certainly καθόλου, because it “concerns the whole” and, inasmuch as possible, it does it “entirely.” In a more important sense, the catholicity of radical revelation consists in the architectonical newness as is offered here. The present approach is not theological, yet it keeps the most important theological structures in its interpretation. It strives to synthesize the biblical and theological traditions with the philosophical perspective in such a way that it shows the fundamental openness of revelation to the development of specifically new understandings. While it follows the tradition of the biblical and theological doctrine, it is fully open to the understanding of revelation in the concrete setting in which we live. In particular, it emphasizes the importance of continuing the integral development along the lines possible today. When I emphasize the correlational nature of revelation, I refer to the importance of both the ad intra and the ad extra dimensions. For, as we saw, newness belongs to the core of the inner life of the divine, and this newness is to be expressed in the context of our lives. This meaning of catholicity offers the present description of revelation as an “overture,” a preliminary and autonomous synthesis introducing something greater than itself, a realization of the fulfillment of apocalyptic personhood in the concrete economic model of the history of salvation. Hans Urs von Balthasar emphasizes the importance of the “Christ form” for human persons. The human is fundamentally distinct from the divine, because infiniti ad finitum nulla proportio, that is, their relation is nonproportional. This makes possible the fulfillment of humanity; and this fulfillment makes it possible that, in spite of the nonproportionality in question, the infinite can define the finite by means of a mysterious indwelling.23 This indwelling is nevertheless a fact, and this factuality is what divides the Christian understanding from that of the visage of Lévinas. This indwelling realizes the intimate connection between the persons of the Trinity in the immanent as well as the economic sense. The downward movement of catholicity is expressed in this indwelling. Inasmuch as we immerse ourselves in the reality of revelation, we take part in the Incarnation—freely given and freely received—such that both the immanent wholeness of humanity remains intact and the overwhelming reality of revelation proves to be all-defining. At the

23 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord. Theological Aesthetics, vol. 1, Seeing the Form, trans. Erasmo Leila-Merikakis (Edinburgh: T&T Clark), pp. 476–550.

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same time, “full humanity” is just as open as the entirety of the divine. If thus this indwelling becomes a fact, this fact is a fact of openness: the opening up of our humanity to the reality of revelation as well as the opening up of revelation to the newness it realizes both ad extra and ad intra. This newness is realized in two ways, that is, ad intra as a continuous actuality of the actus purus, and ad extra as the newness which “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived” (1 Cor. 2:9). The catholicity of revelation comes to the fore in a different way in Karl Rahner’s thought. His understanding of divine self-revelation as “self-sharing” or “self-communication” (Selbstmitteilung) has an importance here which we need to explore. For Rahner, the immanent and the economic Trinity constitute a single whole, although always with intricate and characteristic structures. Already the thesis of the free unity of the ad intra and ad extra dimensions underpins some of the important points in the present work. Even if this “unity” has no resemblance to anything physical or biological in our immediate world of experience, we still may term it life, the “inner life” of God, in accordance with the expressions of the New Testament.24 This life comes to be expressed in the Trinity itself and also in history, a point which is already foreshadowed in the Book of Revelation. This inner life, the “dark mystery of God”25 is “dark” only because we have no means to have an insight into it (to quote Balthasar’s dictum again, infiniti ad finitum nulla proportio). Nevertheless, this dark mystery is from eternity communicated to the persons and thus it comes to the light, and it is communicated to the economy of salvation in an historical as well as a metahistorical sense. For Rahner, “truth” has an important function in divine self-communication. Self-communication is always about the truth, but truth is understood here as genuine self-revealing. Truth is such that [i]t consists first in letting our own personal essence come to the fore, positing ourselves without dissimulation, accepting ourselves and letting this authentic nature come to the fore in truth also in the presence of others.26

This understanding, just like the analogy offered by Thomas Aquinas,27 makes use of the understanding of truth and truthfulness in our daily experience. However, if there is revelation and it is true, the nature of this truth needs to correspond to the understanding of truth we are able to conceive. The above understanding, proposed by Rahner, is indeed in the heart of our experience. Truth above all is not propositional but personal; and divine truth, the content of self-communication, needs to be personal as well. While this is merely a “help,” as Rahner suggests, it is of a great importance. It shows that divine

24 25 26 27

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (Jn 1:4). Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel (London: Continuum, 2001), p. 55. Rahner, The Trinity, p. 95. See above, Chapter 3, section 5.

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self-communication cannot be limited to a communication ad extra. If the immanent and the economic Trinity are one in a certain sense, self-communication is one as well in a similar sense. That is to say, the history of revelation reveals the Trinity, and the Trinity lets us have a nonproportional understanding of its life via the history of revelation ad extra. Divine self-communication, that is to say, takes place above all in the divine itself. I have attempted to show in various ways above that it belongs to the reality of revelation that not only the ad intra defines the ad extra dimension, but there is a mutuality and correlation between the two dimensions. The fulfillment of apocalyptic personhood—the Lamb of God—is a priori the fulfillment in the Trinity, just as the Lamb is slaughtered “from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).28 In other words, the fact of radical revelation and its intrinsic importance in the divine, as I am proposing it in the present work, bear some similarity to the notion of self-communication of God in Rahner’s thought. In this sense, the catholicity of radical revelation is highlighted from another, a merely theological angle. Nevertheless, the nonstandard radical philosophical theology, as it is proposed here, never becomes theology properly so-called, because thereby it would lose its possibility to inquire about some fundamental questions axiomatically presupposed by theology. At the same time, it can be seen that there are important distinctions between theological conceptions. Rahner’s theology appears to leave more space for an axiomatically uncontrolled questioning than, for instance, the conceptually less flexible work of von Balthasar. The catholicity of radical revelation in the present theoretical framework is an active catholicity, a catholicity of inner action, processing, and travail, which looks forward to the receiving of the newness inherent in revelation itself. The notion of radical revelation, however, helps the development of a more appropriate notion of catholicity along the lines I  delineated. The focus on revelation—instead of the existence of the divine or our experience in this respect—gives us a starting point which is a common knowledge in our culture and, moreover, it can offer a panoramic view on the related problems. The understanding of revelation ad extra as well as ad intra should not collide with the traditional doctrine of Trinitarian relations. As a matter course, these relations can be rethought along the lines of revelation just as much as along the lines of self-communication. The notion of revelation in this respect has the advantage that with this word we are in the midst of a long tradition of concepts, and a similarly complex tradition of theology, philosophy, and the arts. That is to say, the use of this word and its conceptual and cultural ramifications give us a peculiar possibility to realize the catholicity of radical revelation not only in the intellectual but also in the cultural sense. In this way, the catholicity of radical revelation is represented in its overall perspective involving various developments of our cultural history.

28 See Chapter 5, footnote 46.

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4. Faith Faith is the free answer to revelation. It realizes revelation in the act of faith and thereby in the entire act of a person. This personal act can be understood punctually, that is, as belonging to a particular act of faith, such as the most decisive act of our acceptance of revelation. There is openness to faith in a person, an attitude which prepares and introduces the concrete act of faith. Without the attitude the act of faith cannot happen, and the act accomplishes the attitude in its concrete way. When Rahner says that the notion of personhood has its own “independent historical development” which has broken away from the notion of personhood as defined in the theological sense, he does not see that the modern notion of personhood has grown out of the Trinitarian sense, and that the modern notion has exerted an influence, perhaps even a decisive influence, on our understanding of divine persons.29 Persons in the modern sense are rooted in the theological realm, and even today the notion of revelation has a direct relevance to the notion of personhood. Personhood is ontologically open to revelation, just as the center of the church-form is architectonically open to the higher center symbolically represented in a dome, a vault, or the structure of the interior of a church building. We can certainly focus on the lower center and consider it isolated from the higher center. Ontologically, however, they belong together. Revelation, just as the acceptance of revelation, is a matter of freedom. It follows that revelation is freely given to persons that may freely accept or reject it. But whatever they do, revelation is freely given in an overall sense and will be freely offered from time and again in a particular and personal sense. Human persons are such that they are defined by their openness of revelation. Revelation is such that it is expressed in personhood. In the concrete life of human persons, nevertheless, this ontological correlation is freely activated or freely rejected. In both cases, we speak of a history. The free rejection of revelation may not be repeated at the next occasion and the free acceptance of revelation may not be confirmed the next time when it is specifically offered in our personal histories. If faith is the free answer to revelation as it is specifically offered on the basis of our free correlation with revelation, then there are various forms of faith corresponding to various aspects of revelation. The following helps us see these connections30: Aspects of revelation

General revelation

Self-revelation

Indirect self-revelation

Direct self-revelation

Radical revelation

Aspects of faith

General faith

Personal faith

Radical faith

Apocalyptic faith

Ultimate instances of apocalyptic faith

29 Rahner, The Trinity, p. 106. 30 For a comprehensive table about the connections between aspects of revelation and aspects of faith, hope, and love, see Appendix III.

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Divine revelation ontologically forms personhood, and it forms human personhood as well. Human persons are formed, in other words, by revelation just in their being persons in the first place. If this formative influence is recognized, we speak of a general faith. This may be just a vague understanding of the fact that human beings have a transcendental dimension, or perhaps a more concrete awareness of our dependence on God in our entire life. It may entail a general or a more specific notion of God, and perhaps, in some cases, even the awareness of God as Trinity. This awareness, let me emphasize again, is a free response to revelation, and yet the possibility of this free response is given in the fact of revelation and thus the response itself is ontologically defined by revelation. Yet freedom is such that it cannot be “defined.” It can be, nevertheless, instigated in such a way that the result will be the acceptance of general revelation. A more concrete form of faith is born as a free response to self-revelation, a response again instigated by revelation itself. Self-revelation is about the specific unity of God, a unity nevertheless which does not realize a person beyond the Trinitarian persons; self-revelation is merely the fact of the divine unity. Yet there is an understanding of revelation which conceives revelation as self-revelation. This understanding is such that it leads to the formation of selfhood in personhood. The selfhood of persons is their innermost unity beyond the psychophysical plurality we share. This selfhood is already available in an ontological relationship between revelation and personhood, but it occurs concretely in the conscious awareness of revelation as self-revelation that the selfhood is especially formed, strengthened, and developed. This formation and development is instantiated in the attitude and act of personal faith. In the free acceptance of indirect self-revelation we understand that it is the divine self that gives itself for us, that revelation is self-donation, and that revelation is giving itself in the form of its own personhood. This awareness of indirect self-revelation, its instigated acceptance, realizes radical faith in us, a faith forming radical personhood. Radical personhood is such that it gives itself for the sake of others. In radical personhood, self-donation is realized in various specific forms of self-sacrifice. The full acceptance of indirect self-revelation is possible only in radical faith; and radical faith is the means by which radical personhood is shaped. It must be added, nevertheless, that this realization takes place on the level of personhood in its core and does not necessarily lead to the concrete act of self-donation. But it leads to the emergence of the self-giving attitude which makes possible the concrete act of self-sacrifice. In the free acceptance of direct self-revelation, we acquire apocalyptic faith. In apocalyptic faith, the mere self-giving attitude is developed into the attitude in which sacrifice and fulfillment are united in a higher act of personhood. In apocalyptic faith, we conceive the dramatic unity of the slaughtered and the glorified Lamb of God. The bearer of apocalyptic faith is entirely aware of the radical aspect of faith, that is, the acceptance of total self-donation. He is at the same time aware of the connection between passion and glory and is open to the realization of a fulfillment. This double awareness leads to the intrinsic amalgamation of pure selfgiving and pure happiness; both are understood with respect to the other. Just as

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St. Stephen saw the Son of God as standing at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56),31 the apocalyptic faithful sees the perspective in which suffering is embedded. The apocalyptic faithful lives in this perspective. Apocalyptic faith forms the entire personality in such a way that memoria passionis—the recalling of suffering—is never conceived without memoria gloriae—the memory of a victorious fulfillment. However, memoria gloriae is conceived as entailing and fulfilling memoria passionis. I emphasize here that we need to think of this faith both as an attitude and as a specific act, and we need to take into consideration the ultimate freedom of the faithful to reject apocalyptic faith with its fulfilled unity. Radical revelation as the absolute fact of freedom defines the highest peak of apocalyptic faith.32 It is apocalyptic faith in the above sense but it embodies a completion: it activates ultimate actions of self-donation in the perspective of glorification. It is not so that the act of self-sacrifice could be attributed to a dark awareness of ambiguity; rather, in the ultimate instances of self-sacrifice the awareness of fulfillment is clearly present. Just compare the last words of Jesus in the gospels: Eli, Eli, la’ma sabach-tha’ni! (Mt. 27:46; Mk 15:34) Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. (Lk. 23:46) It is finished. (Jn 19:30) The first two gospels describe Jesus’s last words from a perspective of radical personhood. Luke describes it in the framework of apocalyptic personhood, and John offers his version in the framework of a specific fulfillment, the highest realization of apocalyptic perspective. Accordingly, the bearer of the specific realization of absolute faith is aware of the accomplishment (τελείωσις, consummatio) in the brutal fact of death. It is aware of the glorified Lamb in the slaughtered one, and it is conscious of the entire perspective in which “fulfillment” is not just a word but a fact, the fact in the full openness of radical revelation in apocalyptic personhood. Instances of apocalyptic faith can be identified in the life of extraordinary personalities, such as the historical Count of Egmont, the hero of Beethoven’s Opus 84 (the Egmont-overture). As further examples we may recall the life, imprisonment, and death of persons like the hero of the Auschwitz concentration camp, St. Maximillian Kolbe; the Protestant pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer; St. Edith Stein; or the extraordinary pope St. John Paul II. It is certainly difficult to concretely identify what constitutes the personal accomplishment of apocalyptic faith in the particular cases. It seems that the very content of such faith is known only to the person who realizes the decision of self-sacrifice. That is to say, the form of apocalyptic faith is public, and yet its proper content is private. However, we still have

31 See Chapter 5, section 3, g. 32 “Apocalyptic” may not be changed to another adjective here. The word properly expresses the revelational character of faith. Yet there is a completion of this character, the fulfillment of apocalyptic personhood.

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some means to understand the character of apocalyptic faith not only in its archetypal form as is given to us in the gospels, but also in personal notes and written conversations with those who made the ultimate decision. Such indirect information may be analyzed, but I believe that it is more important to realize the intimately personal character of apocalyptic faith. We can thus characterize apocalyptic faith as fully private in its personal content, yet as open in its general form; as ultimately special, yet identifiable in its features. In the last analysis it seems that apocalyptic faith may be realized merely in the concrete situation of facing an end. The act of such facing, as described in the story of Jesus in the Gethsemane, has an intra-Trinitarian importance.33 This is realized in the specific act of apocalyptic faith of extraordinary personalities. Yet the act itself, in a certain sense, is the act in the economy of the Trinity. To put it in a specific way we may say that revelation is intrinsically aimed at its reception. Revelation “needs” the act of faith as its fulfillment in the faithful. Every act of faith, but especially the act of apocalyptic faith, is such that it contributes to the reality of revelation in the ad extra sense. Through the intimate correlation between the ad intra and ad extra dimensions, faith is a contribution, even if nonproportional, to the fulfillment of revelation ad intra. The faithful participates in this fulfillment by the freedom they possess. Their freedom, which is freely given and freely received, is a moment of the core freedom of radical revelation. There is thus a unique importance of faith in this respect, an importance without which we would not be able to understand the importance of faith sui generis. This importance is grasped by the faithful not only in a subjective way, as an attitude and act of their elevation. It is also grasped with respect to the importance of faith in the reality of revelation itself, an understanding which recognizes this ultimate and genuine context of faith. The catholicity of faith is fulfilled in the last instance of faith. Yet the catholicity is expressed in all other kinds of faith as well, both in their unique particularity and connections, and most importantly, in the unity of faith in and through all these kinds. This unity, just like the whole of catholicity, has both integration and autonomy. Its essence is openness to newness, because with respect to the absolute fact of revelation we cannot speak of a closed whole. There is nothing “closed” in revelation taken in its radical sense. Any kind of whole, be it the whole of faith or the whole of revelation, is such that it is open to an unpredictable newness. Catholicity as a whole is stipulated in a similar sense as being open to newness in such a way that its holistic character is maintained yet also enriched and elevated. This understanding of the catholicity of faith does not make it possible to create artificial connections among Christian and non-Christian forms of belief. But it certainly makes a comparative analysis of various notions of faith possible in such a way that the basic structure of catholicity may be used as the fundamental pattern of faith.34

33 Mt. 26:39; Lk. 22:42. 34 For more details on the history of faith, see Mezei, Murphy, and Oakes, Illuminating Faith.

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5. Hope Ernst Bloch’s The Principle of Hope is the greatest work ever written on the importance of the deeply human phenomenon of hope. Bloch’s understanding of hope is very complex. Yet it may be sufficient to recall that for him “hope” is based on the teleology of nature, in which the two moments of nature and hope work together to realize a perfect society in which human happiness is fulfilled. In linking the necessity of material and social processes to one another, Bloch’s main intellectual substrate is the thought of Marxism. He enlarges this thought by an overall analysis of various developments of the phenomenon hope in the arts, philosophy, and sciences and argues for a scientific theory of hope which will be capable of producing the necessary technology for the realization of utopia on earth, the perfect society of communism. In order to underpin his understanding, Bloch considers an enormous material of cultural and scientific data and offers, written in his characteristic style, various examples of imaginative thinking without which the perfect utopia cannot be attained.35 In our present perspective, hope is understood as the second radical reply to revelation. As opposed to Bloch’s view, the understanding of revelation does not consider the given cosmological state of the world perfectible in such a way that an imagined material fulfillment can be realized in it. On the contrary, from the perspective of revelation the nature of history is such that it entails intrinsic failures and constitutes its meaning not by means of a continuous ontological selfperfecting or successive scientific and cultural achievements but rather by facing unavoidable collapses of nature and culture. There is certainly a meaningful evolution in history, as I have attempted to show above. At the same time, this meaningfulness is permeated by the cultural and natural catastrophes we have to face, and facing such catastrophes is part and parcel of a meaningful evolution. To put it in a sharper form we may say that a crucial aspect of revelation, expressed in radical personhood, entails the importance of the fact of passion and thus also the memoria passionis. Human personhood is formed precisely in the context of such challenges and reaches a higher synthesis, i.e., memoria gloriae, not as a consequence of a natural teleology but rather as an achievement of freedom. There is indeed a higher-level teleology in the universe, but it is rooted in the development of revelation and not in the development of nature; and the core of revelation is freedom. The real possibility of the rejection of faith, just as the rejection of hope, is written into the heart of human persons, and without a general understanding of such rejection, that is, the real possibility of the failure of revelation, the development of revelation cannot be properly understood. The principle of hope is rooted in Christianity, especially in Paul’s words, according to which

35 Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope, trans. by Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), vols 1–2.

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So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13:13)

Faith, hope, and love form a unity in Paul’s thought; and it is not hope that he terms “the greatest of these.” Yet hope has an essential function similar to that of faith in the perspective of revelation. In the subjective sense, hope is the free acceptance of the openness of revelation to newness. It is an acceptance of openness, that is, it is not an acceptance of a fact but the possibility of a fact. In the same sense, then, hope activates the energy of realization while being open to failure too. If failure were not entailed in hope, hope would lose its hope character, it would become hope-less. To remain hopeful, hope needs to have realization as an active possibility, as an aim, always defined with respect to the lack of hope or failure. Our hopes are most often just everyday hopes: we hope for physical improvement, finding a good job, finishing a project, having dinner, and so on. On a more general level, however, hope is about important things still close to our everyday perspective: it concerns our family, society, nation, the immediate future of mankind. Or hope is professional, inasmuch as we hope for the attainment of scholarly or scientific goals. If we do not stop at this level, we can easily recognize that hope is about more than these everyday matters. For example, we hope to reach purification and spiritual renewal. We hope that our deceased relatives and friends are not fully lost to us. We hope that virtue, even though it is its own reward, calls for a spiritual reward in a more accomplished sense. We hope that faith in God will not decline but will receive a new inspiration and renewal. We hope that the Church will be able to face the challenges of the times and reorganize herself in such a way that her spiritual tasks can be accomplished. We hope, to follow the same line of thought, for the conversion of immoral persons either in their life or in a life after life. We hope for an ultimate fulfillment of personal lives and social existence. We hope for the purification and accomplishment of the entire world. In other words, it belongs to the essence of hope that it reaches beyond worldly well-being and opens itself to the transcendent. Hope is not only a hope for finite goods in this world, but it concerns more importantly the well-being in a spiritual sense, in a sense not bound to the limits of the empirical life of human beings. Inasmuch as infinity has an infinitely stronger importance for us than the finite, transcendent hope is similarly more important than the contents of empirical hope. By its genuine nature, hope is related to the afterlife; and this relation is not just about individual persons but equally about a society of persons, a spiritual history of persons and their society, an entire world of spiritual significance. Consequently, hope cannot be restricted to an imagined historical fulfillment of this-worldly communism. If hope did not reach beyond our empirical boundaries, it would be a failed hope, a hopeless hope, that is, a hope without the genuine content of hope. To identify the ultimate end of hope with an empirical-historical situation, or with a situation in the world in general, is to cut out the core of hope on an ideological basis. In this sense, hope is certainly illimitable. It cannot be restricted to a dream of a perfect society on earth. However, we still have to see that hope is not only a

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subjective attitude or an act, but has an ontological context as well. In the perspective of revelation, we say that hope is rooted in the freedom of revelation and it proleptically reaches the active possibility of the accomplishment of revelation. Essentially, hope belongs to the dynamism of revelation as the hope of revelation and the hope in the fulfillment of revelation. Our everyday instances of hope receive their hopefulness from the more encompassing energy of revelational hope. In other words:  Hope, in the context of revelation, is the proleptically conceived newness of revelation. If radical revelation has freedom as its core, if revelation as such springs forth from freedom, then hope constitutes the ontological connection between freedom and newness. It is part and parcel of freedom that its intentionality directed to newness may or may not be fulfilled. Hope, in this respect, is construed as the gesture by which revelation is directed to its freely emerging newness. It is in this gesture that our particular hopes may appear and become realized. It is due to this gesture that we have our hopes of narrower or broader kinds and we cannot organize our life without the logistical function of hope. Nevertheless, hope is rooted in freedom and its function is defined by freedom. It has a functional necessity in our directedness to goals, but it is also a free direction. We can freely avert our hopes from, say, winning a great sum of money by gaming, and turn it to the higher kind of hope of an inner change of immoral people. We are free to focus our hope on our life or rather on the lives of others. We are free to maintain our hope in a secular society without God, or rather in the accomplishment of revelation. The main problem with Bloch’s utopia is its dogmatic materialism which cannot be maintained in view of the most important results of contemporary science. Moreover, this materialism is of a nineteenth-century character which makes its understanding of material and historical progress out of tune not only with the post–Second World War science but even with earlier developments in the twentieth century. Moreover, the inner dynamism of hope does not allow us to restrict its scope to an ideologically presupposed framework of history. Beyond these critical points it is however even more important that hope belongs to the dynamism of revelation; and hope as an expression of revelation in a characteristic way must be seen in the very perspective of revelation itself. Since revelation is a fact and radical revelation is the overall structure of revelation as such, hope, just like faith, needs to be understood in such a way that we investigate its various aspects in accordance with the relevant aspect of revelation: Aspects of revelation

General revelation

Selfrevelation

Indirect self-revelation

Direct self-revelation

Radical revelation

Aspects of hope

General hope

Personal hope

Radical hope

Apocalyptic hope

Ultimate instances of apocalyptic hope

The relationship between faith and hope in the present perspective can be characterized as consisting in degree of factuality. In faith, we receive the fact of revelation as a free act of the divine and by the free act of ours. In hope, we put this fact

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in the context of divine revelation and conceive it in the perspective of fulfillment, which is the emergence of newness. However, this fulfillment is not a result of a cosmological development or a cultural history. Rather, it is freely given in the structure of revelation and we are expected to freely cooperate with the freedom of revelation to attain its fulfillment. Accordingly, there is a general form of hope belonging to the general form of faith; and this hope is characterized as vague hope or hope in a general sense with no genuine relation to our situation or the reality of revelation. Our personhood in this respect remains undeveloped; this hope is rather a kind of natural desire. But even a natural desire is such that it is directed to its possible fulfillment in a general sense. This generality thus also means that as soon as we concretize our hope in this respect we often face failure. To put it better, the failure of hope belongs to this elementary and general level of desire. At the same time it is precisely the fact of failure that helps us acquire the more concrete form of hope as the content of self-revelation. We need to accept self-revelation so that its selfhood provides us with the more concrete form of hope, namely, the hope in the meaningful unity of reality and its connection to our personhood. When personal hope emerges, we are in the realm of natural hopes that can be fulfilled and are often fulfilled. By this hope, a man and a woman desire unity with each other so that the concrete instance of selfhood can be born and thus realized. By this hope, human persons can be properly brought up and assisted so that they find their place in society. This is the hope we practice with respect to a society. It is an integral part of this hope that we practically hope the material and cultural flourishing of our family and society, and this is the form of hope we cherish with respect to a higher society in which spiritual community can be realized. The foundation of this hope is the more articulate form of personhood, having the concrete self as its center, and the more articulate form of faith as personal faith. Radical hope is the explicit hope in spiritual society, that is, the church. It appears that the spiritual society is construed along the lines of an empirical society. It also seems that just as we aspire for material satisfaction in an empirical society, we may aspire for spiritual satisfaction in a spiritual society. Nevertheless, close analogies do not apply here. The perspective of indirect self-revelation is the context for radical personhood, and radical personhood is formed, with respect to its constituent hope, in a radical way. Radical personhood is the personhood of suffering and the complete yet painful detachment from earlier structures which we considered stable and reliable. It is in the perspective of indirect self-revelation, that is the revelation of the divine self as unity, that a fundamental incongruence emerges between personal faith and radical faith, personal hope and radical hope. Radically, we hope for something else than empirical satisfaction. We hope for the fulfillment of self-revelation inasmuch as we realize that in self-revelation it is the self-donation of the divine that is revealed in a radical way, that is, in the form of self-sacrifice. Hope is transformed here radically. We need to realize that our general and personal hopes are to some extent shallow, or at least they do not correspond to the overall importance of revelation as self-revelation. We realize that in self-revelation it is the divine fulfillment that is at stake, and our hope changes

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accordingly. This form of hope motivates so many persons to turn away from, or sometimes even against, their communities, families, or societies. This form of hope turns to the perspective of divine fulfillment and neglects the human dimension, and makes some of us subjected to memoria passionis. For it is in radical personhood where radical hope can be realized, and it is the radical personhood that has been shown to be the suffering servant of God. Radical hope is suffering hope, i.e., hope in reality, in the face of human or even inhuman afflictions. Apocalyptic hope is the higher unity of passion and glory and the higher awareness of the genuine object of hope, that is, the fulfillment of revelation. In apocalyptic hope one is entirely dedicated to the hope of the fulfillment of revelation in apocalyptic personhood; it is a hope about apocalyptic personhood. In other words, it is in this hope that apocalyptic personhood is formed, just as it had been the hope and faith of the people of the Tanakh in which the emergence of the apocalyptic personhood of Jesus was formed. In this hope, it is the second person of the Trinity that is formed. We cannot say that there was a time when the second person of the Trinity did not exist, but we can say that in the self of the divine the formation of personhood does not exclude its existence in a sense proper in this respect. Faith, hope, and love are part and parcel of ad intra revelation, and just because of this they form us in our personal lives as well. Personhood is formed apocalyptically in apocalyptic hope in such a way that it hopes for newness ad intra and it shapes apocalyptic personhood ad extra. We hope that such personhood will emerge not only in the ad intra dimension but, in a certain sense, in the ad extra dimension as well. The two dimensions belong together in an intricate way, and while it is true that infiniti ad finitum nulla proportio, it is also true that the reality of revelation reaches us nonproportionally, that is, without any measure, i. e. freely, fully, unpredictably, and uniquely. We hope for the realization of this freedom both ad intra and ad extra, but it is indeed the former which appears to be nonproportionally more important. In the ultimate act of hope, apocalyptic personhood gives itself freely and fully for the realization of revelation. In this full self-giving, memoria passionis and memoria gloriae are united. In the very act of apocalyptic personhood, newness is born, an unpredictable event of revelation. In the ultimate act of hope we give ourselves to this unpredictable newness in the hope that it brings about the fulfillment of revelation. We realize apocalyptic personhood in this way, but it is also in this way that we understand the realization of apocalyptic personhood ad intra. What we see is the unity of the slaughtered-yet-glorious Lamb of God in the New Jerusalem; but we do not know precisely what constitutes the newness of the New Jerusalem. Our hope is directed to this newness, we give ourselves to this newness, because we have apocalyptic faith and apocalyptic hope in which revelation is fulfilled. In the human realm, strictly speaking, there are nonproportional parallels to this ultimate act of hope, such as the deep trust in which we accept another person in friendship or love so that we give ourselves fully to the other person in certain situations. What leads us is merely hope, in this respect, that by means of our self-donation a higher good is realized. The catholicity of hope has two aspects:  one horizontal and one vertical. In the horizontal aspect, hope is realized in all human activities in a certain sense

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and to a certain extent. For no mental or physical life is possible without a certain kind of hope, that is, without a proleptically conceived accomplishment—and in this accomplishment, the intrinsic newness—of human activities. The form and content of hope shows here a well-formed variety universally present in human persons as persons. On the other hand, the catholicity of vertical hope is given in the catholicity of revelation, and the kinds of hope corresponding to the aspects of revelation ensure an overall catholicity that is focused on the accomplishment— and in this accomplishment, the intrinsic newness—of revelation. Radical revelation leads to apocalyptic personhood, and this personhood, as soon as it is formed, forms nonproportionally not only the ad intra reality of revelation but also, in its proper sense, the ad extra dimension as well. Indeed, the Lamb of God shares the throne of God and at the same time it is the light of the New Jerusalem.

6. Love In our present perspective, love is understood as the third, specifically apocalyptic response to revelation. Love is primarily apocalyptic. This is not only valid for ἀγάπη or charity, the spiritual kind of love, because ἔρος or erotic love is already apocalyptic in its own way. Erotic love is the expression of a person’s natural desire to become united with another person. To be united, nevertheless, is self-giving in the form of the striving for a sensual, emotional, and intellectual fulfillment. In its elementary forms, sensual striving aims at a partial fulfillment, such as satisfying our hunger or thirst. In such striving, nevertheless, there is a strong element of sensual, emotional, in certain cases even intellectual self-giving. In eating, we prima facie strive for the satisfaction of our hunger. Eating, nevertheless, does not consist in a one-sided appropriation of food. There is a self-dedication in eating, especially when hunger is above the normal level. When a starving person seeks to satisfy his or her hunger, the element of self-dedication is especially conspicuous: such a person gives himself or herself to the act of eating in such an elementary way that he or she is fully engaged in this activity. The poet János Pilinszky spoke of an “all-consuming ecstasy” when he observed “the French prisoner” eating some vegetable he found at the barrier of the concentration camp.36 There is indeed an ecstatic dimension in the satisfying of sensual and emotional desire on a higher level as well, such as in erotic love. Even if the natural desire to receive sensual satisfaction may be significant in erotic love, this satisfaction cannot be reached without an appropriate level of a complex sensual and emotional selfdedication. In this sense, already erotic love is apocalyptic, namely, in the sensualemotional sense of this expression. Moving beyond the level of immediate erotic desire, just think of the normal phenomenon of human love. What Rahner writes about the genuine nature of

36 See the poem and my analysis in Mezei, Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz, p. 293.

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truth, namely, that it consists in letting our own personal essence come to the fore, “positing ourselves without dissimulation,”37 is valid for the experience of love as well. In genuine romantic love, we indeed “let our own personal essence come to the fore” without dissimulation or the will to mislead the other person. There is an elementary sincerity in romantic love which has an apocalyptic feature in that it reveals persons in their real personhood. Romantic love is precisely such that it reveals the person in love without dissimulation yet with a deep sincerity to, and trust for, the other person. Such love certainly has an erotic character, and yet this eroticism is part and parcel of a complex, sensual-emotional-intellectual whole which encompasses the entire human person. In erotic love, sincerity and self-dedication, self-giving and accepting the other are equally fundamental. The apocalyptic nature of love is thus obvious, and corresponding forms of an apocalyptic attitude are present to a suitable extent in most of the forms of erotic love. Nevertheless, the self-interest in these kinds of love may divert the element of self-dedication and overshadow it with the relatively strong motive of self-interest. Eρος is especially apt to amplify the self-satisfying element in love in such a way that it becomes defenseless against various kinds of misuse. But misuse never characterizes the natural essence of a thing. What I misuse can be used in a positive and constructive way. In a similar sense, the misuse of erotic love does not characterize the natural essence of erotic love. It only shows that erotic love is open to degrading possibilities which corrupt its essence. In this essence, erotic love is about the self-dedication to the other person on the basis of mutual self-giving in the framework of a personal relationship without dissimulation; in its own, natural way it expresses the apocalyptic nature of love. The apocalyptic feature of love reaches a higher form in spousal love. In the framework of a mutual and full personal commitment aiming at the establishment and preservation of a common life of an empirical, social, psychological, and spiritual nature, spousal love freely entails full self-giving to the other person. In spousal love, that is, in love with another person of complementary sexuality, the apocalyptic nature of love comes to the fore and becomes realized in a unified yet complex fashion. We need not pretend that spousal love must be realized in one possible way. This would be impossible and unnecessary. Human persons are ultimate wholes with their own personal characteristics; thus their complete selfgiving in spousal love needs to be specially personal as well. Moreover, self-giving is not an a priori act which remains unalterable in its concrete structures throughout the history of spousal love. On the contrary, it is on the basis of an elementary yet full self-giving that the particular structure of spousal love can be developed as the result of a life-embracing cooperation between the two persons. Spousal love needs to be developed, structured, even changed in accordance with personal and social circumstances in such a way that its unity can be preserved. Spousal love is apocalyptic also in the sense that it entails a continuous renewal. It is directed to newness both in the dimension of

37 Rahner, The Trinity, p. 95.

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the spousal love itself and in its natural openness to procreation. Inasmuch as it is genuinely love, spousal love has a threefold apocalyptic nature: first, in the form of an a priori self-giving which grounds spousal love as such; second, in the form of a self-giving formed by the cooperation of the partners; and third, in the form of its openness to newness first in the spousal love itself and second to the possibility of childbearing.38 There are defining narratives about the power of erotic love, spousal love included, in our traditions. Euripides’s Alcestis is known for the self-sacrifice of the wife of Admetus, although in this ancient play the motivation of the wife to sacrifice herself for the divine life of the husband is not fully clear. For one thing, the story is not about mutual love of the spouses, since the husband easily accepts the self-sacrifice of Alcestis and agrees to accept a life without his spouse. Moreover, Heracles’s heroic deed of saving Alcestis from death has the ambiguous consequence that Alcestis will have to live with an eternal husband for some decades and then pass away for a second time. In any case, the play expresses in a figurative way the importance of self-giving in spousal love and its power to overcome death. I have already mentioned Margaret’s figure in the Faust.39 Although Margaret does not prima facie sacrifice herself for Faust, her love still proves to be the ultimate power that rescues Faust from eternal damnation. Margaret’s will to save Faust in his ultimate desolation is all the more surprising that Faust seduced her as a young girl and contributed to her tragedy of murdering their child, being imprisoned, and finally executed. Yet it is ultimately the Eternal-Feminine that possesses the saving power exemplified in the figure of Margaret, a power introducing the element of newness into the tragic life of Faust. In a similar vein, Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman is a drama describing the breaking of the curse afflicting the Dutchman. The removal of the curse is possible only by the decision of a woman to marry the Dutchman, that is, the cure cannot be removed except by a woman’s full self-dedication. This dedication is realized by the unexplainable self-sacrifice of Senta at the end of the opera. Here again it is the feminine principle that possesses the power of breaking the spell and saving the Dutchman from damnation. At the same time, the drama makes it explicit that, by her saving act, Senta elevates also herself to a higher realm of being. Thus, both the Dutchman and Senta reach

38 Spousal love is by nature open to procreation. Yet in its essence it is an apocalyptic partnership among persons of complementary sexes in the natural sense. This partnership is so unique that it gives the same value to spousal love even without the fact of procreation. Thus a definition of spousal love by means of the active or passive possibility of procreation misses the nature of apocalyptic personhood characteristic of spousal love. We may also observe that, as Kant noted, if the essence of marriage was strictly bound to the intention of childbearing, marriage would automatically be dissolved when procreation ceases. Cf. Kant, Metaphysical Elements of Justice. Part I of the Metaphysics of Morals (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999), p.  88. This criticism of Kant points out the insufficiency of a naturalistic notion of marriage and opens the way to the apocalyptic understanding. 39 See Chapter 6, section 5, c.

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purification and deliverance. In all these cases it is spousal love in its various forms that defeats the power of death and realizes the newness of salvation. Love has a different form among friends. As we read in the Gospel of John, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”40 In this text, love is ἀγάπη and the expression for “friend” has the general meaning of the loving or the loved one (φίλος). The translation “lay down his life” is certainly precise, although the original text says “to give his soul” (τις τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ θῇ). Even in this case it is clear that giving the soul or laying down the life is the realization of full self-giving. This sentence has been usually interpreted as a reference to Jesus himself; the gospel text nevertheless allows for a more general understanding of the nature of friendship in the genuine sense. Women who laid down their lives for their spouses realized spousal self-giving. Here it is the friend that dies for friends, which is indeed a rare occurrence. In some professions, comradeship dictates self-dedication and even self-sacrifice in extreme situations. However, comradeship is not friendship, and the rules of a profession are not identical with someone’s free self-dedication to his or her friends. Indeed, it happens rarely that a person’s whole life is determined for a long period of time by his conviction about the meaning of his life as decisive for humanity in its entirety. We know of persons in our history who understood their works, or perhaps just one work, as important in a given scientific or scholarly context, and we can imagine artists who believed that they might have rescued humanity just by producing a poem, a painting, or a symphony. In the former case, some scholars proposed only hypotheses and were not absolutely certain of the real weight of their work, as, for instance, Copernicus shows who did not publish his main work during his life. Other scholars, such as Kepler and Newton, were convinced of the importance of their work but did not see it as possessing an overall importance for the entire history of humanity. Poets and painters sometimes clearly recognized their own genius and even the prominence of their work, such as El Greco or Blake, even if their genius was not appropriately esteemed by the society in which they lived. And some musicians, such as Beethoven, were more or less clear about the artistic value of their compositions. Richard Wagner, nevertheless, was indeed a surprisingly rare phenomenon with his idea of creating a new culture on an historical scale. It is, therefore, remarkable that Friedrich Nietzsche was fully convinced of the overall importance of his own person and work. When we try to understand the self-assurance of his personality, we may refer to the probable effects of an atypical general paresis due to tertiary syphilis. Yet this diagnosis is questionable and the published works of Nietzsche are clearly the works of an unusual genius both in style and content.41 Nietzsche considered his mature works the most decisive events in the history of humanity since the beginning of Christianity. In Ecce

40 Jn 15:13. 41 See Duncan Large’s introduction to Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, trans. Duncan Large (Oxford University Press, 2007).

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Homo, he offers an apparently provocative intellectual autobiography about the important contents and the overall significance of his published works. Some features are especially conspicuous in his last published writing, such as his belief that his work is a “dynamite” which will cause an epochal conflict in the world; that his Dionysian figure—that is a figure of self-sacrifice—will fully change the course of history, or that his denunciation of Christianity inaugurates a new development, the emergence of the overman, in the history of mankind. As he writes, I know my lot. Some day my name will be linked to the memory of something monstrous, of a crisis as yet unprecedented on earth, the most profound collision of consciences, a decision conjured up against everything hitherto believed, demanded, hallowed. I am not a man, I am dynamite.—And for all that, there is nothing in me of a founder of religions—religions are for the rabble; I need to wash my hands after contact with religious people . . . I don’t want any “disciples”; I think I am too malicious to believe in myself; I never address crowds . . . I have a terrible fear of being declared holy one day: you can guess why I am publishing this book beforehand—it should prevent any mischief-making with me . . . I don’t want to be a saint, and would rather be a buffoon . . . Perhaps I am a buffoon . . . And nevertheless—or rather not nevertheless, for till now there has never been anyone more hypocritical than saints—the truth speaks from me— But my truth is terrifying, for lies were called truth so far.42

Nietzsche believed that “truth” spoke from him. He did not consider humanity his “friends.” Yet he considered humanity his natural community in which his work had an epochal role, the role of initiating a historic change. The figure of the self-sacrificing Dionysus was rather a pose he offered as a possible explanation of his person and work. Dionysus, as opposed to “the Crucified One,” was the embodiment of genuine life that needs to die for a new beginning. Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s other alter ego, was the symbol of the same new beginning in the form of a quasi-prophet inaugurating the end of the old world and the birth of genuine truth. In his criticisms of Christianity, Nietzsche did not seem to have realized that he mistook the figure of Christ for a then fashionable and fairly narrow interpretation; and he similarly mistook Christianity for a superficial public morality of his age. Public morality may always involve some superficiality, even hypocrisy, and superficial interpretations of Jesus may dominate popular culture. We can ask, nevertheless, if Nietzsche would have charged Michelangelo’s Christ with life-denial, or El Greco’s Resurrected with hypocrisy, or Fazzini’s Risen Christ with lying. Naturally there are understandings of Christianity more open to the charges formulated by Nietzsche. Yet a deeper understanding can never find his charges apposite. The catholicity of Christianity is not about hypocrisy, ressentiment, or lying. Rather, it is about the life of the truth, the dynamic history of revelation which points to an ultimate fulfillment. During its history, Christianity has

42 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 88.

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learned to understand its own traditions and even improve its self-understanding. The notion of revelation shows such a development, which learns to distinguish between the wheat and the tares. At the same time, we recognize in Nietzsche an apocalyptic prophet who predicted not only the collapse of European culture but also his important role in this collapse, and we can recognize in him the one who understood his entire life in terms of serving the truth in its genuine and overall reality. Without dissimulation, Nietzsche let his personal essence come to the fore in the presence of others. In this sense, Nietzsche is “catholic,” because his service to the truth followed the path of revelation leading to newness; and his often exaggerated criticism can be seen today as a reaction to the blindness of his contemporaries to the genuinely catholic nature of truth. It has been shown that Nietzsche “has not passed beyond the edge of his reason” when he wrote the above passage. Even though some parts of the text show signs of an incipient insanity, the book is still a consistent product of the author and can be interpreted philosophically.43 In my understanding, Nietzsche conceived his philosophical mission as a self-sacrifice for truth. This attitude, as mentioned, is not only rare, but among influential intellectuals, we hardly find anybody with an attitude distantly similar to Nietzsche’s self-understanding. The very title of Ecce Homo, the last book he had published before insanity overcame his personality, refers to his self-understanding as a sort of “Christ.” “Ecce homo” is the Vulgate translation of the words attributed to Pilate in the Gospel of John when he showed Jesus to the crowd demanding his execution.44 The title refers to Nietzsche himself as the genuine representative of “ecce homo,” that is, as the bearer of an epochal renewal. Moreover, Nietzsche identified himself as a person “who knows his lot.” When he offers the role of a “buffoon” instead of a saint, he stresses the uniqueness of his figure. Otherwise, “the truth spoke from him.” It is obvious that he saw his approaching end, a physical and mental collapse, when he summarized his views in Ecce Homo. He understood this collapse as the sign of the imminent beginning of a new era, and he understood his person as the necessary sacrifice for the possibility of the new beginning. In the framework of a traditional terminology we may say that Nietzsche was indeed a prophetic figure. His apparently scandalous sayings, his expectation of the overman, the condemnation of Christianity all show a formal closeness to fundamental Christian attitudes. It is not only that many sayings of Jesus in the gospels must have appeared just as scandalous in his age as the words of Nietzsche proved to be at the end of the nineteenth century. It also seems that Nietzsche’s understanding of truth cannot be separated from the absolute truth claim of Christianity. The truth-saying in Christianity was just as central as the truthsaying in Nietzsche, and in both cases, it is the form that is decisive in our context. Nietzsche did not offer a dogmatics or a worldview; his apparent empiricism

43 Cf. Large, Introduction to Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. xii. 44 Ἴδε ὁ ἄνθρωπος (Jn 19:5).

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was part and parcel of his prophetic behavior and it cannot be taken literarily. Certainly, Nietzsche wanted to distance himself from the “truth” he considered a “lie,” because he attempted to reach a more fundamental understanding of truth, that is, truth in its prophetic function of judgment and opening. He understood truth as the radical rejection of lying and as the opening of genuine being; as the rejection of an entire tradition and the founding of a new reality. Yet he identified himself as “the opposite of the no-saying spirit,” because he wanted more than just a negation: he wanted to go beyond the inherited historical structures and realize something intrinsically different. In this sense, his self-dedication to truth is consistent with the nature of divine revelation pointing to the moment of intrinsic newness. There is something deeply apocalyptic in Nietzsche’s figure, and his dedication to truth has the same character. In a sense we may even say that he embodied, in a special way, apocalyptic personhood, in his distorted, suffering, yet genial personality. Even on the threshold of insanity, even knowing his own physical and mental weakness he appeared to be aware of his own “lot” or destiny as a glorious one. I would say: his destiny as that of a dreadful and epochal person. Yet there is a strange power in his deplorable personality which calls for an appropriate interpretation. In my understanding, his dedication for truth can be identified as the expression of apocalyptic love in the specific sense, of the sort which cannot be concretely defined because of its ultimately personal character. At this point, we need to situate this kind of love in the context of revelation: Aspects of revelation

General revelation

Selfrevelation

Indirect self-revelation

Direct self-revelation

Radical revelation

Aspects of love

General love

Personal love

Radical love

Apocalyptic love

Ultimate instances of apocalyptic love

In general love, we have just an obscure understanding of love. Yet already on this level, love is understood as a response to revelation. Since love is apocalyptic in its essence, already obscure love contains the challenge of self-giving in various partial aspects of life. It is only as a response to self-revelation that personal love appears, for instance, the paternal love for children or the children’s love for their parents. In indirect self-revelation we realize the challenge of self-giving; in love and friendship we face such possibilities. We conceive that self-giving generates radical personhood and accepts the need of suffering for the sake of others. It is, nevertheless, an answer to direct self-revelation that apocalyptic love, as the unity of suffering and glory, can be attained. Various forms of spousal love give us examples of such apocalyptic self-dedication. In its ultimate fulfillment, apocalyptic love realizes a unique transcendence beyond the earlier forms and expresses itself in unpredictable ways. In my understanding, Nietzsche’s strange personality shows one of such ways. Other forms of love, for instance, John Paul II’s forgiving his assassin for the attempted murder, can also serve as examples of the unpredictable form of love. It is important to see that love, even in more conventional

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situations, call for unique actions. Among friends as well as among parents and children or among spouses, unpredictable forms of love can emerge as the result of self-dedication and self-giving. This unpredictable character is already present in the cases I briefly described above (such as the cases of Alcestis, Margaret, or Senta), and in real-life situations this unpredictability can be realized in even more individual ways. The reason of such emergent newness lies in the ultimate uniqueness of persons as persons and also in the uniqueness of the forms of self-giving they achieve in particular situations. What connects such unpredictable forms to one another in apocalyptic love is the unique character of self-giving in a partial or a full sense. The catholicity of love is a unique catholicity. It consists precisely in the unrepeatable, irreducible, unique forms of realization, that is, in the realization of newness. Romantic love is instantiated in different forms in the case of concrete human persons, because human persons are unrepeatable ultimate wholes. If such a difference is not easily visible in average cases, it is due to the less developed forms of personhood. Apocalyptic personhood calls for uniquely individual forms of love which are difficult to identify because of their intimately personal character. It belongs, nevertheless, to this personal character that love is in fact realized, because love, in its essential form, is always unique and unrepeatable. If there is a general theory of love, it must take into consideration this unique nature, a nature which is indeed conceived in the context of faith and hope along the lines of radical revelation. In fact, the “friend” that “lays down his life for his friends” is the second divine person. His self-giving is at the same time the ultimate Trinitarian self-giving. Various forms of love, by their participation in revelation, are related to Trinitarian self-giving in their own ways and on their own levels. To approach it in a different way, it is Trinitarian self-giving that is actualized nonproportionally and partially in our acts of love, and it is the same Trinitarian life of absolute selfgiving that is expressed in the unpredictable, irreducible, and uniquely new forms of apocalyptic love.

7. Prospects Faith, hope, and love are synergetic. Their inner core is self-giving. God is absolute self-giving. In our openness, this absolute self-giving is realized ontologically. In the acts of faith, hope, and love we realize ontological self-giving in the form of concrete acts. Thereby we develop our persons in accordance with the kinds of revelation to which particular aspects of faith, hope, and love correspond. In this way, divine revelation is the formative power in our lives as persons and as community of persons, and beyond that as historically existing community of persons. We cooperate with divine revelation in such ways, and divine revelation cooperates with us in the same way. Since in the present approach it is divine revelation that is considered the fundamental determinant of being, both revelation and our cooperation with it are catholic in the sense delineated above.

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According to Henri de Lubac, “Catholic” suggests the idea of an organic whole, of a cohesion, of a firm synthesis, of a reality which is not scattered but, on the contrary, turned towards a center which assures its unity, whatever the expanse in area or the internal differentiation might be.45

Catholicity is therefore a complexio oppositorum. However, if it were just a sum of opposites, it would not be a genuine whole. A genuine whole has its own unity and, as we saw, this unity has an internal dynamism to form newness. The existence of a whole is already newness when compared to its constituents, but its unity is such that it is directed to newness. Genuine wholes, such as persons, are ontologically directed to newness, and higher-level genuine wholes, such as divine revelation, are such that they are directed to newness on a higher level. This direction can be termed openness, and thus the very definition of catholicity is a definition of openness. Catholicity is an overture in the senses I analyzed above: it is more than an introduction, because it contains the main features of the whole to which it belongs in a specific, holistic, overarching, architectonic fashion.46

45 Henri de Lubac, The Motherhood of the Church, trans. Sr. Sergia Englund, OCD (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982), pp. 173–4. 46 Accordingly, any understanding of the “complexio” or “coincidentia oppositorum,” the important description of God offered by Nicolas of Cusa, has to consider that the principle refers to a whole by nature higher than just a sum of its constituents. Philosophically, the whole is an autonomous entity and not only a simple sum; and theologically, the whole of divine reality is infinitely higher than its simple constituents. If God is seen as the sum of Good and Evil, as, for instance, Thomas Altizer suggests, he commits three important mistakes: First, he does not take into account that the synthesis of Good and Evil is necessarily a higher whole. Second, he does not seem to realize that as soon as this higher whole is considered, it cannot be reduced to its constituents and God cannot be called Evil or Good in the senses we applied these terms before. Third, there are a number of kinds of opposition traditionally described in the Square of Opposition. To understand these kinds in the theological context one needs to see that God is not opposed to Satan in simple contradictory or contrary ways; their difference is more complicated and ultimately defined by the structure of divine infinity: God is genuinely infinite, Satan is not. The same structure describes God as “coincidentia oppositorum”: In God everything coincides, but God is infinitely higher than its “constituents” and is not opposed in the simple sense to anything. Cf. the following quote from Prof. Bakos’s work on Nicolas of Cusa: “In his opinion, this maximum is at once absolute maximum (maximum absolutum), Absolute Being (absoluta entitas), and the (absolute) One (unum, unitas). All things are in it, nothing is opposed to it. This maximum is beyond understanding and cannot be grasped by a human intellect.” Gergely Bakos, On Faith, Rationality, and the Other in the Late Middle Ages:  A  Study of Nicholas of Cusa’s Manuductive Approach to Islam, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2010), pp. 149–50.

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There are two aspects of this problem which must be carefully distinguished. On the one hand, catholicity entails wholeness; and on the other hand, catholicity entails openness. The importance of this distinction consists in this that being a whole is being a synthesis of the parts on a higher level, and being an historical whole is being a synthesis of the historical parts on an historically more advanced level. I emphasize this point in order that the significance of the traditional understandings concerning religion, revelation, the Bible, and all other aspects of catholicity may be as clear as possible. As I showed on the example of the development of church architecture, new and influential implementations of the church-form always contained the element of synthesis. The very fact of the presence of the church-form in the plurality of styles demonstrates that there is an underlying continuity in the development of architecture which needs to be taken into consideration in an overall understanding of the unity of tradition and novelty. Moreover, the continuous presence of various additional elements in renewed forms in different buildings again calls for an appropriate understanding of the same unity: tradition, that is to say, has an underlying and defining function in the whole of catholicity. In which sense do we need to consider the importance of tradition in this context? From the point of view of a radical philosophical theology, the problem of tradition is the problem of history, and the problem of history is the problem of meaning. We do not have historical meaning without the important role of a tradition, just as we do not have linguistic meaning without the tradition of linguistic meanings in the changing contexts of grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. The most appropriate example here is the word “revelation.” As we saw, there is a traditional layer of meanings that emerged from the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin linguistic and theological sources, and there is a reception of these sources during the subsequent periods in such a way that a renewed understanding of the meaning of revelation became possible at some point. There are various social, cultural, political, and intellectual factors which play a role in the formation of the possibility of a new interpretation. Nevertheless, the new interpretation is always based on the main undercurrent of the tradition itself and can be realized only by understanding an inherent meaning in the tradition itself. Tradition, that is to say, calls for its own reception and interpretation. Tradition exists, to put it differently, merely in the context of such a continuous reception and continuous reinterpretation. A tradition torn out from this context is not a tradition but just a chunk of memory without the life-giving circulation with its environment. A tradition without the continuous development of its contents is again a tradition without life or “without a bite.” It belongs to the very essence of a tradition that it has an inner dynamism which makes it possible that the tradition in question may be received and interpreted. This inner dynamism, the undercurrent of various traditional forms, is the bearer of the meaning of a tradition. We do not understand this meaning without its dynamism, and we do not genuinely conceive the importance of tradition without the same context. In other words, the essence of a tradition lies in its openness to reception and reinterpretation in such a way that the genuine form of tradition is maintained and further developed.

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Beyond the logical and conceptual analyses we may again refer to the historical forms of certain traditions, such as the essence of the church-form and its various implementations throughout the centuries, or again we may recall any similar instance beginning with the form of a sonnet through the form of a drama to the emergence of a symphony. In all such cases, we see the synthetic development of tradition and newness in such a way that an essential form is maintained in the subsequent changes of styles and their characteristic instances. There are extraordinary instances when a tradition is changed in a fundamental way so that it may still maintain its essence. Among the examples I  considered above the development of Renaissance painting comes to the fore. It is indeed particularly useful to overlook the development of the representation of the image of Christ from the early fourteenth up to the nineteenth century. The traditional iconography, developed by Byzantine painters especially after the iconoclast debates, considered the types of the image of Christ as possessing an immutable and perennial existence.47 This tradition has been maintained in Orthodox centers till today. Historical research, nevertheless, realized the specific stylistic developments in representation from the sixth century. These developments were merely partial as compared to the fundamental changes initiated first by the Scuola di San Luca of Crete and then—as a result of the influence of this school in Italy—by the renaissance painters of the Trecento and Quattrocento. If we compare Giotto’s Christimages on his Life of Christ with, for instance, Bellini’s Christ Blessing, we may have an understanding of the fundamental change that occurred in the iconography. The essence of this change can be defined as the breakthrough of a realistically human representation of the image of Christ. The development between Giotto and Bellini is noticeable, and it is even more noticeable to follow the further development up to the Last Judgment of Michelangelo. The iconography of the image of Christ was fundamentally changed already in the works of Giotto, and once this change was achieved, the consequences developed in a relatively rapid pace. Similar changes can be found in the history of literary forms, music, dressing, and architecture. To apply here an important notion of Thomas Kuhn, there have been important “paradigm changes” in the history of culture such that the earlier paradigms were substituted—yet not destroyed—by the new paradigms. Nevertheless, the theory of paradigm change may not be able to describe properly the real relationship between tradition and innovation in the realm of culture. In culture we have general patterns which allow for development and change, but the patterns themselves cannot be substituted. On an historical scale, Christianity is such a fundamental pattern which has determined not only intrinsic developments, and also paradigm changes, in its realm, but even extrinsic developments such as the emergence of a secular culture. Secularism is defined by forms and contents inherent in Christianity, and even the ultimate “paradigm change”

47 See Leonid Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon (New  York:  St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1978).

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proposed by Nietzsche is a change inspired by the most radical contents intrinsic in the fundamental layers of Christianity. This tradition, thus, is a higher-level paradigm than most of the paradigms we define as such. It is this tradition in the most genuine sense of the word which determines its own development and also the developments attached to its historical existence. The fundamental form of this tradition can be described variously. In the present context, I identify it as the form of revelation, more importantly as radical revelation, a notion possessing a deeper and more overarching power of influence than many cultural, scholarly, or scientific paradigms we so often cite. The reason of the higher power of influence lies in the fact that this tradition has a metahistorical dimension of ad intra reality. The very essence of this ad intra reality of revelation, nevertheless, consists in its openness, as we saw above.48 This openness makes it possible to understand the intra-Trinitarian life of the divine as pure actuality. Infiniti ad finitum nulla proportio, as I have repeatedly quoted. This nulla proportio refers to the fact of absolute freedom. Absolute freedom, however, is expressed in the ad extra dimension as a rhythmic pulsation of tradition and innovation, most importantly a recurring breakthrough of novel forms and contents in the framework of a given form. What makes this breakthrough possible is the intrinsic openness of revelation; and thus, in the ad extra dimension, the intrinsic openness of catholicity. Catholicity is not just a synthesis, a complexio oppositorum, but a continuous breakthrough of newness; and this breakthrough is not only realized in particular developments of artistic styles, but more importantly in the essence of catholicity itself. That is why it is worth quoting the words of Avery Dulles from 1982: [C]atholicity is a dynamic term. It designates a fullness of reality and life, especially divine life, actively communicating itself. This life, flowing outwards, pulsates through many subjects, draws them together, and brings them into union with their source and goal. By reason of its supreme realization, which is divine, catholicity assures the ultimate coherence of the whole ambit of creation and redemption.49

The dynamics of catholicity is expressed in its active communication both ad intra and ad extra. It is a supreme realization, indeed, of dynamism and openness in the eternal form of revelation. It offers an ultimate coherence which allows for novelty, the birth of newness in all possible forms. Catholicity is an overture both in the sense that it introduces a symphony of itself and in the sense of offering new forms and contents within the context of its eternal freedom. It is in this sense that the notion of radical revelation is catholic, and it is in this sense that this notion is open to various implementations in culture and history. The notion of radical revelation, as developed in the present volume, is an answer

48 See Chapter 6, sections 1 and 2. 49 Avery Dulles, The Catholicity of the Church (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), p. 167.

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to “a crisis as yet unprecedented on earth, the most profound collision of consciences, a decision conjured up against everything hitherto believed, demanded, hallowed”—an answer that offers its radical newness in such a way that this crisis may be overcome and the new form of catholicity, in accordance with its essential form, may be established (cf. Mt. 13:52). This task is above all a task of ad intra revelation, and yet it is at the same time an ad extra task, the task of the apocalyptic personhood in the attitudes and workings of faith, hope, and love. Through this attitude and these workings, the notion of revelation can be applied to the understanding of our historical situation, to the development of culture and religion, to the meaning of the sciences as they evolve and bring to the fore ever newer proposals about the nature of the universe, and they can be applied also to the understanding of our social situations with their intrinsic problems of poverty and oppression. Most importantly, however, the notion of radical revelation has the intellectual function to assist the proper understanding of our historical and cultural context in a radically philosophical way. But even in its philosophical labors, the understanding of radical revelation maintains and interprets the fundamental recognitions offered in our traditions: “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.” Because “[w]hen you think these things, it is the word of God in your heart.”50 I developed the above tasks in the framework of what I term a “nonstandard radical philosophical theology.” On the basis of the preceding investigations, I call this philosophical theology apocalyptics.51 Apocalyptics is the study of the meaning of revelation in its historical, dogmatic, and cognitive connections. Apocalyptics, therefore, is a narrower definition of the nonstandard radical philosophical theology of revelation. Yet while apocalyptics is understood as an historical-cultural theory, the radical theory of the present work is fundamentally philosophical. Apocalyptics is a philosophical discipline based on the parallel methodologies of the historical investigation of cultural data, theological argumentation, and philosophical insight. In its essence, it is a phenomenological theory of apocalyptic personhood in its historical as well as phenomenological dimensions. I developed and applied apocalyptics in various ways on the foregoing pages; here let me mention only two important points.

50 Respectively: Lk. 12:2 and Augustinus, In Evangelium Joannis Tractatus. 51 The term “apocalyptics” is formed along the lines of “metaphysics.” Just as we have the term metaphysics from τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικὰ (βιβλία)—“the books that come after the [books on] physics”—I propose the use of apocalyptics based on ἀποκαλυπτικὰ with the meaning: “the study of things belonging to disclosure or apocalypse.” In the nineteenth century, the term “biblical apocalyptics” was already in use to denote the biblical teaching on revelation, for instance in Terry Milton Spenser, Biblical Apocalyptics. A Study of the Most Notable Revelations of God and Christ in the Canonical Scriptures (New  York:  Eaton and Mains, 1898).

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First, apocalyptics as a phenomenological analysis of apocalyptic personhood has its own catholicity based on “the catholicity of reason.” This catholicity, nevertheless, is derived from the catholicity of radical revelation in the methodological form delineated above. Second, apocalyptics as a cultural discipline investigates the empirical occurrence of the development of apocalyptic personhood, as I did it above with respect to some important data. Apocalyptics can be further advanced in both senses. In the theoretical sense, it is apt to be developed in the properly theological and in the more strictly philosophical directions. Theologically, apocalyptics offers its contribution to a better understanding of the notion of revelation. Philosophically, it offers its theoretical points concerning historical and logical methodology, structural wholeness, and the notion of personhood. In the sense of its application, apocalyptics is apt to be developed into a full-fledged cultural discipline with appropriate analyses derived from the history of arts, the sciences, and social matters. In all these meanings, apocalyptics is a contribution to a better understanding of the essence of catholicity. A systematic outline of the study of apocalyptics can be found in Appendix IV.52 As a closing thought let me refer again to an important artistic achievement. The Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro offered in the form of his sculptures an understanding similar to the tasks delineated as an apocalyptic theory. One of his central sculptures is entitled Sfera con sfera, “Sphere within a sphere.” One version of it is located in the garden of the Vatican Museums in Rome.53 By its location and specific realization the sculpture prima facie expresses that museums do not exist for a limited understanding of the past, but rather for an opening to the realization of the new. The two main spheres of the sculpture explore the dimensions of old and new and show their connaturality from the point of view of the observer. Nevertheless, the genuine nature of newness of the innermost contents remains hidden. What is revealed is the birth of newness out of the old matrix. The nature of the external sphere is such that it gives birth to the new while its own natural form disintegrates. The new slowly appears and is ready to create its own reality. An additional reading of the sculpture is that the two main spheres interact with one another. They exist with respect to the other. We can recognize in this reading a symbol of the correlation of the ad extra and ad intra dimensions of revelation: they form a common reality and exist with respect to one another. However, they preserve their ontological distinction which can be described by applying the principle, as I did above, of nulla proportio. This relationship characterizes the reality of revelation in its economy and immanence, and in it we can find the most important feature of our relationship to divine disclosure.

52 In accordance to the overview in Appendix IV, various contributions to the study of apocalyptics are expected to be realized during the following years. 53 There are another twelve versions of the Sfera con sfera exhibited, among other places, in Trinity College, Dublin, the United Nations Headquarters, New  York, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran, and at the campus of Tel Aviv University in Israel.

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Yet precisely this nulla proportio, understood properly, ensures that we, in our full personhood, belong to the very heart of revelation by means of its freedom and by means of our freedom, that we may open what needs to be opened, and that we consider the tradition not as a self-contained entity existing for itself but rather as the structure of possibility of creating, working out, and implementing sui generis newness, which is, indeed, the very task of apocalyptics as an understanding of apocalyptic personhood. The key to this understanding is summarized in the words of the Gospel: Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. (Lk. 12:2)

335

C ONCLUSION

In this volume I have offered a complex interpretation of divine revelation from the point of view of a nonstandard radical philosophical theology. The most important insight, which has been expressed throughout the present work, can be summarized in this dictum: Revelatio est quodammodo omnia.—Revelation is, in some sense, everything.

I arrive at this point by a series of analysis of historical, logical, and phenomenological nature which attempts to understand and explore the fundamental fact of revelation. I carried out some preliminary investigations to this problematic in my 2013 Religion and Revelation after Auschwitz. That volume remains seminal in the present work, and I refer to its analyses at various junctures of my arguments concerning the problem and the methodology of the issues I raise. As I have explained both in the previous book and on the preceding pages, the present approach is competent to investigate the notion of revelation axiomatically presupposed in more specific theological studies. As opposed to such studies, the nonstandard radical philosophical theology of revelation is able to ask ultimate questions concerning its subject matter and is thus capable of gaining insights, and formulating arguments originating in such insights, which otherwise remain hidden to approaches based on the axiom of divine revelation. However, “theology” is used in many senses and it is important to emphasize that it is merely the systematic kind of theology, based on the axiom of divine revelation, which is sharply distinguished from a radical philosophical theology. This latter is “theology” in a sense, yet it is based on the fact of revelation and considers this fact as its genuine source. As opposed to this genuine relationship to the fact of revelation, axiomatic theology refers to revelation as its first category accepted on the basis of the authority of witnesses. When theology considers the “fact” of revelation, it takes it in an historical framework and often only as a poor fact. The nonstandard radical philosophical theology, however, sees revelation as a rich or paradigmatic fact, which has been and remains the living source of reflections. This philosophical theology conceives the fact of revelation as pointing to the historical facts yet, at the same time, it emphasizes the correlational character of the ad intra and ad extra dimensions of revelation. Mere axiomatic theology refers to philosophy as the discipline which is able to investigate the reality of revelation without presupposing the axiom of revelation. This philosophical theology is “nonstandard,” because it does not fulfil the traditional role of fundamental theology. Rather, it is open to the rich fact of revelation and reflects on the implications and consequences of this fact in its endeavors. At

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the same time, the nonstandard radical philosophical theology understands its work as a contribution to the rethinking of theology properly speaking, because it explores the latter’s axiomatic presupposition. It is in the framework of a broadly understood theology that the philosophical theology has its place. As to the term “radical,” I have applied a philosophical meaning and rejected political or ideological interpretations. I  cannot put my work either in the continental-phenomenological or in the analytical tradition of philosophy, and I  cannot delegate it to philosophy or theology in the conventional sense either. I  used features, means, and characteristics from all these fields and integrated them into a whole which I consider fundamentally philosophical. I have kept the attitude of open questioning throughout this work and attempted to explore many of our presuppositions. My work as a whole is dependent on its specific subject matter I call “radical revelation.” If I attempt to summarize in a nutshell the content of this notion, then it is divine self-disclosure in its original fact and meaning as is given for our lives and reflection in its actual and historical forms with respect to their fulfillment. The term “radical,” as I have explained, refers to the original and historical factuality of revelation. This is an eschatological understanding which considers revelation in the context of its original expression and ultimate accomplishment. However, there is a structure of my understanding of divine revelation which needs a clear statement. In Appendix I, I offer the concentric model of revelation, which is designed to show the universal structure of revelation. The aim of this chart is that the very nature, as it were, of revelation may be properly understood inasmuch as it can be understood. The main point is that revelation is conceived in the form of a model which synthesizes various other models, explained on the previous pages. It also displays a structure which shows that divine revelation has a core fact and meaning in which its dialectical features can be recognized. Revelation is a fact yet its factuality may appear to be hidden to as well as open for the receiver of revelation. As is shown in the other chart in Appendix II, revelation has an intricate structure. Revelation is above all self-revelation, an expression which emerged relatively late in the history of the notion yet it has proved to be essential for our understanding. If revelation is self-revelation and if there is an historical development of this fact and notion, it is proper to understand revelation as a complex structure developing in itself as well as on an historical scale. In this development, self-revelation is given in two ways, in direct and indirect forms. In the direct form, self-revelation is the revelation of revelation, that is, it reveals itself as selfrevelation. For, as I argued above, revelation is such that it defines itself as revelation. This is the most fundamental form of revelation, that is, the immediately given information concerning the fact that what is perceived is revelation. The indirect form of self-revelation is the revelation of the divine self, that is, unity, which is absolutely communicated to a plurality both ad intra and ad extra. This plurality is above all that of the divine persons in the Trinitarian sense, because divine personhood is conceived as the effect of the life of the godhead. Personhood is eternally realized in its own ways, that is, in the ways

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traditionally determined in Trinitarian doctrines. The main point here is that there is an ad intra dynamism in divine revelation which is expressed in the ad extra history. Yet both dimensions belong together and form the comprehensive whole of revelation. The self of self-revelation is expressed in radical personhood, which is understood here as the tragic component of the drama of revelation. This component, the passion of the second person of the Trinity, points nevertheless to its own fulfillment. This fulfillment uses the hidden power of direct self-revelation which leads passion to glory and becomes accomplished in apocalyptic personhood. This accomplishment is not only the realization of revelation in itself, but also the historical realization of revelation as is shown by the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. Radical revelation appears as the unity of direct and indirect self-revelation; and since it has been shown that revelation leads to personhood, radical revelation leads us to recognize the ultimate significance of apocalyptic personhood in radical revelation, the ultimate fulfillment of the personification of the process of revelation seen both in its ad intra and ad extra dimensions. In the entire structure of revelation the main point is the dynamic character of revelation in its internal and external relations such that not only the history of revelation may be better understood but also the internal dimension is more properly conceived. My main aim in this work has been merely philosophical yet I find it very important to call attention to the depth of the notion of revelation in our discussions today and, together with this notion, the importance of the Trinitarian understanding of the divine. These two aspects of my discussions may make my work relevant in more than just the philosophical realm of contemporary scholarship. However, I  did not wish to enter the realm of Trinitarian theology properly so-called, just as I have tried to avoid the field of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. Instead, I put the notion of revelation into the center and derived even the notion of God from the fact of revelation. Instead of an argument for the existence of God, I developed (in Chapter 1, section 5) the ontological argument for the fact of revelation, an argument underpinning the central importance of the subject matter of revelation in my philosophical approach. This argument also shows that my standpoint is in no way a kind of fideism. Moreover, I acknowledge the role of proleptic structures in human beings that make possible the reception of revelation. It belongs to these structures that we recognize revelation and are free to respond to it. We realize in a complicated way that our reply to revelation is part and parcel of revelation itself, not because there are not autonomous structures external to revelation, but because revelation is, indeed, all in all—quodammodo omnia—in the last analysis. I have analyzed a number of artworks to show the presence of apocalyptic personhood in a culture rooted in Christianity. Paintings, poems, music, and architecture helped me understand better my own project and offer solutions to problems I had not seen when I started to work on this volume. Yet as I advanced with my work, not only did new problems appear to me but even their solutions. Whatever has been the basis of such a procedure, I believe I can claim to have discovered

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not only new perspectives and themes but also a novel structure of possibilities to continue the present work in a definite direction. Most importantly, the central discoveries of this volume are as follows: ●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

Revelation is the most important problem of philosophy of religion, and also of philosophy in a more general sense. Revelation can be logically confirmed by the ontological argument for the fact revelation. The methodology of models can be used for revelation with the prospect of defining the unity model of revelation in the form of a concentric arrangement. The unity model can be developed into an understanding of revelation based on the notion of self-revelation. Self-revelation is properly understood in terms of radical revelation as the expression of the absolute fact of freedom. The center of revelation is the unity in plurality, that is to say, the relationship between the self and the persons. Human personhood, as we conceive it today, is an organic development of the process of the ever better understanding of the personhood of the Trinitarian God. Personhood is to be understood in the two fundamental categories of radical and apocalyptic. Apocalyptic personhood is not only a significant category of our understanding of revelation but also of our understanding of human personhood in history, society, and culture. Revelation is enriched by the interplay between its ad intra and ad extra dimensions with a special emphasis on the role of apocalyptic personhood. The principle of refusivum sui offers a new understanding of the possibility and reality of evil and the supremacy of good in history, culture, theory, and politics. Catholicity is to be understood on the basis of the catholicity of revelation, which opens the way to the understanding of the universal openness of revelation to ad intra and ad extra renewals. Talking about revelation presupposes and realizes to some extent the possible discipline of apocalyptics, the outlines of which I propose in this work. And again let me repeat the most important point: Revelatio est quodammodo omnia/Revelation is, in a sense, everything.

It is central to the understanding of revelation in this work that, in my view, our entire Western culture remains inexplicable without the dimension of revelation in its Trinitarian sense. While analyzing the cultural developments originating in revelation, I have repeatedly emphasized that it is not just culture in a limited sense that has sprung forth from revelation but rather our entire contemporary world, that is, our present reality in an encompassing sense is the outcome of the workings of divine revelation in all the intricate ways of the internal and external

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dimensions. I  strived to point out that divine revelation is not an insignificant chapter in an outdated doctrine but a living reality which still forms our person and thought in a holistic way, indeed in a way only a nonstandard radical philosophical theology may be able to explore. I have tried to work out this philosophical theology in a complex fashion by offering not only analyses on the history of ideas, not only linguistic considerations (such as the possibility to form the expression “self-revelation”), but also purely philosophical ones as well, for instance, the ontological argument for the fact of revelation in Chapter  1. In this argument, I  have used developments in analytical philosophy of religion. Nevertheless, I have also developed a phenomenological approach to revelation which I term “apocalyptic phenomenology” and put it into the context of contemporary continental philosophical developments. It is part and parcel of this apocalyptic phenomenology that the problem of revelation can be meaningfully analyzed in terms of the history of the arts, which I have done repeatedly in this volume with respect to painting, sculpture, poetry, music, and architecture. In view of all these approaches, it may not be an exaggeration to say that in this work an overall discussion of the fact and notion of revelation is offered. As the more specific definition of the non-standard radical philosophical theology in this work I have introduced the neologism “apocalyptics.” This expression is a corollary of my work with respect to the notion of a radical philosophical theology. I realized that on the basis of radical revelation as expressed in radical personhood we have gained an overall thematic and methodological framework. This framework is defined by the method of analyzing the instances of apocalyptic personhood in our history and beyond so that a meaningful whole of radical revelation as apocalyptic revelation comes to the fore. The method is historical analysis in the perspective of radical revelation. The overall subject matter is what emerges in this perspective not only historically but above all conceptually, and that is the apocalyptic features of our conceptual structures, that is, finiteness. This finiteness, however, is defined by its relation to infinity just as apocalyptic personhood is the expression of radical revelation as an apocalypse. The outlines of an eschatological philosophy emerged as the result of this work, and in a possible continuation of the present volume I will need to offer a more detailed description of apocalyptics. Appendix IV is a summary of the most important aspects of apocalyptics. As it seems, my work and its possible continuing corresponds to the message of the historical changes we have witnessed during the past years, especially in Europe and North America. The ever more visible signs of the collapse of our classical culture make it urgent to find our way to an overall evaluation of the results this culture has given to humanity. My work appears to be one of the many attempts at the assessment of such unique results, and I will endeavor to find the way to a possible extension of the present work when the time is ripe again for such an effort. This volume emerged from the beginnings of methodological and typological questions rising to an overall understanding of radical revelation. I have repeatedly emphasized that this understanding is nonproportional and cannot be anything

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else: philosophy is based on the experience of openness and a nonstandard radical philosophical theology is the analysis of this openness in view of the fact of revelation. If it was possible that we fully or proportionally understand revelation, then the fundamental feature of revelation, that is, its openness, would be lost. It is a requirement of openness that our understanding of revelation remains partial, even fragmentary or, as I put it in this work, nonproportional. At the same time, it is this nonproportional understanding that makes it possible to continue this work in such a way that philosophy and theology can equally profit from it. Most importantly, however, it is the context and the contents of an apocalyptics that need to be explored, described, and interpreted. When we witness the most shocking developments that have reached our Western world during the past years—especially the attacks on New York, Paris, and Brussels, but also the millions of immigrants seeking their new home in the heart of Europe—I believe that the present work is born just in a time when it is indeed most urgent to reconsider the legacy of the notion of revelation and to find a new way to overview it in the perspective of a much-needed renewal.

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A PPENDIX I T HE C ONCE NTR IC M ODEL OF R EV E L AT ION

Revelation as:

g d Co nition; an

le ho W

Creatio na nd Sa lva Word an dD ee d

ommunity dC an

Something and Nothing

a lity; P rt and ea

ience and per R Ex

al rnatur upe dS an al

n

and Resurre ctio ation n; arn c Na n I tu n; r it o P d u n b a l i c e ; t P a ers riv o ;P

Fa ct

The list constituting the concentric model can be found in Chapter 2, section 4. It runs as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Revelation as fact and cognition Revelation as creation and salvation Revelation as incarnation and resurrection Revelation as word and deed Revelation as natural and supernatural Revelation as experience and reality Revelation as private and public Revelation as person and community Revelation as part and whole Revelation as something and nothing

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A PPENDIX II T HE R AM IF ICATIONS OF R EV E L AT ION

Divine Revelation

Self-Revelation

Direct Self-Revelation

Indirect Self-Revelation

Apocalyptic Personhood

Radical Personhood

Radical Revelation

Radical Revelation in Apocalyptic Personhood

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A PPENDIX III A SPE CT S OF C ATHOLIC I T Y Aspects of revelation

General revelation

Selfrevelation

Indirect self-revelation

Direct self-revelation

Radical revelation

Aspects of faith

General faith

Personal faith

Radical faith

Apocalyptic faith

Ultimate instances of apocalyptic faith

Aspects of hope

General hope

Personal hope

Radical hope

Apocalyptic hope

Ultimate instances of apocalyptic hope

Aspects of love

General love

Personal love

Radical love

Apocalyptic love

Ultimate instances of apocalyptic love

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A PPENDIX IV A N O UT LINE OF TH E S TUDY OF A P O C A LY P T IC S Structural fields ► Methodological apocalyptics Content fields ▼

Theoretical apocalyptics

Historical apocalyptics

Contexts of logic

Logical problems of method

Logical problems of theory

Logical problems of history

Contexts of philosophy

Philosophical problems of method

Philosophical problems of theory

Philosophical problems of history

Contexts of theology

Theological problems of method

Theological problems of theory

Theological problems of history

Contexts of phenomenology

Phenomenological problems of method

Phenomenological problems of theory

Phenomenological problems of history

Contexts of religious studies

Problems of method in religious studies

Problems of theory in religious studies

Problems of history in religious studies

Contexts of the sciences

Problems of method in investigating the sciences

Problems of theory in investigating the sciences

Problems of history in investigating the sciences

Contexts of the arts

Problems of method in investigating the arts

Problems of theory in investigating the arts

Problems of history in investigating the arts

Contexts of personhood

Relevance for apocalyptic personhood

Relevance for apocalyptic personhood

Relevance for apocalyptic personhood

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INDEX OF NAMES Page numbers in italics refer to footnotes. Altizer, Thomas xii, 186, 328 Apuleius 211, 212 Aristotle xix, 10, 15, 34, 96, 301, 302 Athanasius, Saint 120, 143 Augustine v, xi, 15, 124, 129, 218, 262–266 Ayres, Lewis 24, 81–82, 264 Baader, Franz von 22, 26 Bach, Johann Sebastian 285 Bakos, Gergely 328 Balthasar, Hans Urs von 25, 28, 143, 178, 260, 299–300, 308, 309 Barluzzi, Antonio 305 Barth, Karl 29, 143, 177 Beethoven, Ludwig van 295–296, 313 Berkeley, G. 22 Blake, William 243–245 Bloch, Ernst 315, 317 Bœspflug, François 146 Boethius 124, 133, 134–135 Bogányi, Gergely 291 Böhme, Jakob xvi, 21 Bolzano, Bernard 53–54 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 148, 313 Brentano, Franz 54 Burkhardt, Jacob 297 Caputo, John 43 Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da 147, 204, 324 Cervantes, Miguel de 261, 271 Christ, Jesus xvii, 18, 19, 22, 27, 37, 38, 40, 49, 77, 78, 85, 94, 102, 103, 104, 115, 120, 134, 134, 143, 144, 147, 158, 160, 162, 164, 165–168, 176, 177, 179, 180, 182, 184, 186, 192, 195, 199, 210, 218, 222, 243, 268, 313, 314, 325 Chrysostom, St. John 157 Cicero, M. T. 19

Clement of Alexandria 20, 78, 143 Clement of Rome 6 Confucius 71 Darwin, Charles 65 Descartes, René 46, 136 Drey, Johann Sebastian von 56 Dulles, Avery 22, 83–86, 100, 163, 331 Eckhart, Meister 22, 26 Einstein, Albert 60 Einstein, Albert xx El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos) 147, 202, 207, 324 Eliade, Mircea 55 Elsheimer, Adam 219 Emery, Gilles 284 Endo Shusaku 96 Erasmus of Rotterdam 46 Erdély, Mátyás 147 Euripides 322 Fazzini, Pericle 202, 215, 233 Feuerbach, Ludwig 137 Fichte, J. G. 2, 6, 53, 117, 136, 137, 138–139 Findlay, John Niemeyer 25, 26 Frank, Anna 147 Franz Josef (emperor) 306 Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald 68–69 Gaudí, Antoni 306 Gilson, Etienne xiii Goethe, J. W. von 25, 272–276, 290, 322 Grünewald, Matthias 147 Günther, Anton 22 Handel, Georg Friedrich 285 Haydn, Joseph 285

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356

Index of Names

Hegel, G. W. F. ii, xvi, 21, 26, 27, 28, 53, 65, 117, 119, 120, 136, 137 Heidegger, Martin 27, 54, 55, 132, 136, 235, 248, 251–52 Heiler, Friedrich 74, 76–77, 78, 83, 163 Heisenberg, Werner xx Henry, Michel 283 Homer 36, 236 Hume, David 22, 136, 137, 286 Husserl, Edmund 54, 92, 136, 248 Ingarden, Roman 54 Iraeneus of Lyon 24–25, 144, 301 Jaspers, Karl 71 Joachim de Fiore 21 John Paul II, Saint 143, 313 John the Baptist, Saint 26–27, 78, 164 Jonas, Hans 143, 147 Kant, Immanuel xi, 22, 25, 26, 53, 115–117, 136, 137, 138–139, 175, 286–287, 296, 302 Kertész, Imre 147 Kierkegaard, Sœren 22 Kilby, Karen 43 Kolbe, Maximilian, St. 313 Koslowski, Peter 26 La Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) 305 Lao-tse 71 Latourelle, René 17, 21, 69, 74, 78, 79–83, 86, 114, 163 Leeuw, Gerardus van der 55, 74, 76, 83, 163 Leibniz, Georg Wilhelm 155, 163 Lentulov, Aristarkh 245–246 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 21, 25, 26 Levi, Primo 147 Lévinas, Emmanuel 133, 147, 248, 276–283, 308 Lewis, C. S. 4 Liszt, Franz 288–289, 291, 297 Locke, John 21, 22, 136, 137 Lonergan, Bernard 212–214 Löwith, Karl 258–259 Lubac, Henri de 328 Lull, Ramon 15 Luther, Martin 22, 194

Makovecz, Imre 305–306 Marion, Jean-Luc xxiv, 15, 248–49 Marx, Karl 137 Mavrodes, Georges 54 McAdams, A. James ii, x McBrien, Richard P. 301 Mendelssohn, Felix 61 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 174, 248 Mezei, Balázs M. xxiii, 7, 92, 247 Michelangelo, Buonarroti xvii, xxiv, 147, 190, 203, 330 Moltmann, Jürgen 143, 147 Monta, Anthony ii Montaigne, Michel de 261, 271, 272, 273 Monteverdi, Claudio 285 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 285 Müller, Max 78 Murphy, Francesca x, 56, 62, 182 Nagel, Thomas 128 Nemes, László 147 Newman, John Henry 115 Newton, Isaac xx Nicolas of Cusa xii, 2, 4, 26, 328 Niemeyer, Oscar 305 Nietzsche, Friedrich 136, 323–326, 331 O’Callaghan, John x Oakes, Kenneth x, 56, 62 Orff, Carl 292 Origenes 78, 114 Ovid 170, 211 Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da 285 Pascal, Blaise 266–272 Pender, E. E. 37 Penelhum, Terence 54 Philo of Alexandria 19 Philostratus 37, 40, 45 Pilinszky, János 320 Plantinga, Alvin 54 Plato 19, 27, 37, 44, 45, 46, 78, 131, 143, 174, 195, 218, 242–243, 293–295, 298 Polanyi, Michael ii Pomodoro, Arnaldo 332 Przywara, Erich 55 Pseudo-Dionysius 75, 124, 178, 249 Purcell, Henry 285

357

Index of Names Rahner, Karl 28, 143, 309, 320–321 Ratzinger, Joseph xiv, 44 Rea, Michael 43 Rembrandt, Harmenszoon van Rijn 204 Riches, Aaron x Röhrig, Géza 147 Rubens, Peter Paul 147 Russell, Bertrand 22 Santacroce, Girolamo da 159 Sartre, Jean-Paul 248 Scheler, Max 54, 136 Schelling, F. W. J. xvi, 21, 26, 27, 28, 29, 53, 75, 117–119, 120, 136, 137, 175, 287–288 Schiller, Friedrich 22, 25 Schindler, David C. 303 Scorsese, Martin 96 Shakespeare, William 259, 261, 271, 272 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander 147 Sophocles 211 Spaemann, Robert 136, 137 Spengler, Oswald 290–291 Spenser, Terry Milton 332

357

Speybroeck, Daan Van 245 Stein, Edith St. 313 Strauss, Richard 235 Suarez, Francisco 52 Tanquerey, Adolph 69 Taylor, Charles 130 Tertullian 124 Thomas, Aquinas xiv, 29, 124, 125–129, 130, 135–136, 309 Tillich, Paul 22 Toynbee, Arnold 297 Turner, J. M. W. 251 Turton, Anna ii Vetö, Miklos 15, 141, 236–238, 239–241, 248–249 Wagner, Richard 235, 288–289, 296–297, 322–323 Wiesel, Elie 147 Wright, N. T. 19, 202 Zwingli, Huldrych 181

358

359

INDEX OF BIBLICAL PASSAGES Page numbers in italics refer to footnotes. Gen. 1:2 1:27 2:7 15:17 35:7

164 253 167 17 111

Exod. 3:2 3:14 33:20 4:24 13:21 19:16

17 41, 158 133 23 17 17

1 Kgs 19:12

17, 23

1 Sam. 3:21

19, 110, 120

Isa. 42 56:1

221 111

Jer. 11:19

221

Ezek. 11:19 18:31 36:26

235 235 235

Dan. 7:13–14

195, 198

Amos 3:7

111

Mt 27:63

180

9:1–8 8:5–13 3:16 3:17 8:12 8:20 8:26 8:28–34 9:27–31 9:28 9:32–33 11:27 12:8 12:10–13 12:13 12:22 12:48 13:52 14:31 15:22–28 16:2–3 16:17 16:27 17:2 17:9 17:14–21 20:16 20:30–34 22:13 22:20–21 26:39 27:46 28:17

167 167 165 165 217 198 162 167 167 162 167 xvi 198 167 18 167 162 332 162 167 169 22 198 170 171 167 221 167 217 134 314 313 200

Mk 1:23–28 1:30–31 1:40–45 4:11 7:25–30 7:31–37

166 167 167 196 210 167

8:22–26 10:18 12:14 14:21 15:43 15:34 15:44 16:12 Lk 2:46 2:52 3:16 5:1–11 5:38 8:10 8:25 8:43–48 10:22 11:29 12:2

167 162 133 198 180 313 181 18

12:54–56 13:10–17 13:28 14:1–4 17:11–19 19:5–9 22:42 22:50–51 23:39–43 23:46 24:37

162 161 206 210 206 196 162 167 xvi, 18 217 v, 173, 332, 334 169 167 217 167 167 210 314 167 210 313 200

Jn 1:1 1:4 1:5 1:18 1:23 1:26–27

164 309 168 114 164 164

360

360

Index of Biblical Passages

1:29 1:36 3:14 3:30 4:46–47 5:1–9 5:35 8:44 9:1–38 9:3 9:6–7 10:36 12:34 12:45 14:22 15:15 15:13 18:21 19:5 19:30 20:28 21:15

220, 221 220, 221 199 165 166 167 165 217 167 167 167 162 198 114 18 18 323 162 325 313 127 220

Acts 1:14 2:1 2:3 2:1–4 2:13 2:24 2:38 2:47 3:14 3:21 6:8–7:53 7:54 7:56 7:58 7:60 9:3–6 17:23

205, 207, 217 217 206 254 206 206 209 206 216 18, 27 216 216 216, 217, 313 219 219 210 177

17:34 22:6 22:20 26:13 Rom. 7:14 16:25

125 210 217 210

90 22, 35

1 Cor. 1:17 1:18 2:9 3:13 9:1 13:1 13:12 13:13 15:8 15:17 15:17–18 15:28 15:32 15:42 15:47

142 145 123 18 210 255 133 316 201 181 201 201 90 201 202

2 Cor. 12:4

18

Gal. 1:15–16 4:4

210 95

Eph. 1:9 1:10

94, 120 95

Phil. 2:5–11 2:9 3:7–11

142, 145, 172 190 210

3:10 3:20–21

90 90, 243

Heb. 1:1–2 1:3 2:3

67 68 68

1 Jn 4:8

114

Rev. 1:1 1:8 2:17 2:28 3:9 3:12 4:10–11 5:5 5:6 5:9 5:12 7:17 12:1 12:7–12 12:9 13:8 14:1 14:10 17:8 17:14 21:1 21:4 21:5 21:6 21:22 21:23 22:1 22:6 22:9

223 182 184 184 183 184 222 221 127, 222 184 222 223 184 184 186 222 222 223 223 223 184 242 185, 242 184 223 223 184, 223 182 183

361

INDEX OF ART WORKS Page numbers in italics refer to footnotes. Adoration of the Trinity (painting by Dürer) 146 Al Resala Mosque (London) 307 Alcestis (drama by Euripides) 322 Apologie de Raymond Sébond (essay by Montaigne) 271 Basilica in Esztergom (Hungary) 304 Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń (Poland) 306 Cathedral of Our Lady of Aparecida (Brazil) 305 Chapel at Ronchamp (France) 305 Christ as the Representative of Humanity (sculpture by Steiner) 234 Christ Blessing (painting by Bellini) 330 Christ on the Cross (painting by Michelangelo) 147 Christ Pantocrator (icon) 41 Cologne Central Mosque (Germany) 307 Deposition of Christ (painting by Caravaggio) 147 Der Spaziergang (poem by Schiller) 25 Dominus Flevit Church in Jerusalem 305 Don Quixote (novel by Cervantes) 271 Ecumenical Church (plan by Imre Makovecz) 305–306 Egmont Overture (music by Beethoven) 295, 313 England, Awake! (poem by Blake) 244–245 Faust (drama by Goethe) 25, 117, 271, 272–276, 281, 290, 291, 299, 322 Fidelio (music by Beethoven) 295 Frauenkirche (church in Dresden) 304

Hagia Sophia (building in Istanbul) 304 Hamlet (drama by Shakespeare) 271 Hungarian Rhapsody (music by Liszt) 32 Idomeneo (music by Beethoven) 295 Isenheim Altarpiece (painting by Grünewald) 147 Jerusalem (poem by Blake) 243–244 Joseph and Aseneth (Egyptian text) 211 Karlskirche (church in Vienna) 304 Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Night (painting by Turner) 251 La Resurrezione (sculpture by Fazzini) 203, 215, 324 Leonora Overture (music by Beethoven) 295 Metamorphoses (poem by Ovid) 211 The Golden Ass (novel by Apuleius) 211, 212 Missa solemnis (music by Liszt) 291 Mosque in Rijeka (Croatia) 307 Pantheon (building in Rome) 304 Philoctetes (drama by Sophocles) 211 Prometheus (music by Liszt) 297 Resurrection (painting by El Greco) 202, 324 Resurrection (painting by Rubens) 202 Sagrada Familia (church in Barcelona) 306 Saint Basil’s Cathedral (painting by Lentulov) 246 Santa Maria Maggiore (church in Rome) 304

362

362

Index of Art Works

Sfera con sfera (sculpture by Pomodoro) 333 Son of Saul (film by László Nemes) 148 St. Matthew Passion (music by J. S. Bach) 285 Temppeliaukio Church or Rock Church (Helsinki) 306 The Adoration of the Magi (painting by Santacroce) 159–161 The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (painting by Jan van Eyck) 223–224, 245 The Cathedral of Canterbury 304 The Cathedral of Notre Dame of Paris 304 The Cathedral of the Northern Lights (Norway) 307 The Church of Light (Ibaraki, Japan) 307 The Descent of the Holy Spirit (painting by El Greco) 207–208 The Flying Dutchman (opera by Wagner) 296–297, 322 The French Prisoner (poem by Pilinszky) 320 The Heavenly Jerusalem (Mosaic in Aachen) 245 The Holy Trinity (painting by Rubens) 147 The Incredulity of St. Thomas (painting by Caravaggio) 204

The Jubilee Church (Rome) 307 The Last Judgment (fresco by Michelangelo) xvii, xxiv, 190–194, 203, 204, 233, 291, 324, 330 The Life of Jesus (paintings by Giotto) 162, 330 The Magic Flute (music by Mozart) 295 The Messiah (music by Handel) 285, 287 The New Jerusalem (painting by Lentulov) 245–246 The School of Athens (fresco by Raphael) 233 The Stoning of St. Stephen (painting by Elsheimer) 219 The Supper at Emmaus (painting by Rembrandt 204 The Trinity (icon by Rublev) 140 The Trinity (painting by El Greco) 147 Two forms of Los with Enitharmon (drawing by Blake) 245 Votive Church in Vienna 306 Yeşil Vadi Mosque (Istanbul) 307 Η Πεντηκοστή (icon) 207

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365

366