Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: The Trinune God: Systematics

Titel: The Triune God: Systematics

Stichwort: Das natürliches Verlangen d. Intellekts 3 (desiderio intellectus, appetitus); Einwand, Widerspruch: natürlich - übernatülich; direktes Objekt d. V:. Sein -> negative Formulierung: "ruht nicht eher ..."

Kurzinhalt: ... we reply that the direct and explicit object of this natural desire is not to behold God in his essence; it is being. Since God as something to be seen in his essence falls within the formality of being, the consequence is that ...

Textausschnitt: 653b Let us now proceed to answering the following objections. (Fs)
A first objector says that to speak of a natural desire for a supernatural vision is to make a self-contradictory statement. (Fs)

To this we reply that if a natural desire either constitutes such a vision or is the principle from which the vision naturally results or which requires the vision, then we grant the objection; but if not, we deny it. (Fs)

653c But the objector rejoins: Acts are specified by their objects. But the object of this natural desire is absolutely supernatural, namely, the vision of God through his essence. This natural desire, therefore, is a supernatural act, which implies a contradiction. (Fs)

To this we reply that the direct and explicit object of this natural desire is not to behold God in his essence; it is being. Since God as something to be seen in his essence falls within the formality of being, the consequence is that this natural desire does not rest until it beholds God in his essence. Yet this consequence reveals not an explicit but only an implicit object; and because this consequence is not an affirmation but a negation (namely, 'it does not rest until...'), it indicates an object that is not only implicit but also, in a way, indirect. (Fs) (notabene)

653d Besides, to this object, being, this natural appetite is not related as act. Only the divine act of understanding can be related to being as act, just as only God's will can be related to good as act (Summa theologiae, 1, q. 79, a. 2; q. 54, a. 2). Every created intellect is to being as potency, and indeed not proximate potency as form, but as mere potency, remote and obediential. (Fs) (notabene)