The Transcendental Imagination: An Essay in Philosophical Theology

97 Pages·1972·2.407 MB·English

by  Charles E. Winquist (auth.)

The Transcendental Imagination:
An Essay in Philosophical Theology
The Transcendental Imagination:
An Essay in Philosophical Theology
by
CHARLES E. WINQUIST
•
MARTINUS NI]HOFF I THE HAGUE I I972
ISBN 978-94-011-&717-6 ISBN 978-94-011-95'j8-4 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-94-011-95'j8-4
~ I972 by Martinus Nijhott. The Hague. Netherlands
All rights reserved. including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION I
The Current Dilemma
Philosophical Theology 5
The Structure of a Transcendental Critique of Theology 8
II. AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL CONCEPTION OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL
IMAGINATION 14
Kant and the Notion of the A Priori 14
The Invariant Heuristic Structure of the Transcendental Imagination 23
A Correspondent Notion of Being 25
A Protest Against Obscurantism 26
The Encounter of Thomism and Kantianism 27
Transcendent Knowledge 30
III. TRANSCENDENTAL ONTOLOGY 36
A Radical Beginning 36
Internal Relations and the Thrownness of Dasein 37
Unconcealment in an Unphilosophical State of Knowing 41
Unconcealment in the Philosophical State of Knowing 45
IV. AN ONTOLOGICAL CONCEPTION OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL
IMAGINATION 53
The Expansion of Our Method 53
Basic Elements in a Monadic Theory of Nature 59
Nexus, Creative Passage, and Higher Phases of Experience 61
The Ontological Meaning of the Transcendental Imagination 69
Language and the Transcendental Imagination 71
An Ontological Conception of Language and the Appearance of Man 75
V. THE DEVELOPMENT OF A HERMENEUTICAL THEOLOGY 76
The Centrality of the Hermeneutical Question for the Growth of Theo-
logy 76
The Immediacy of the Historical 80
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Horizon of Religious Understanding
The Task of Theology
Conclusion
Bibliography 88
PREFACE
The "transcendental imagination" is a philosophical conception used in
this essay to illuminate the ontological significance of the continuing
proclamation of the Word of God. It has become necessary for theology
to respond to the growth of secularization and the impoverishment of
religious language in contemporary experience by initiating foundation
al inquiry into the meaning and possibility of theological reflection.
The following essay is intended to be a preliminary step toward an
understanding of theology and religious discourse as they are intimately
bound to the realization of possibilities in the life of the church.
There are many people to whom I am indebted for my understanding
of theology and for the development of this book. I here would like to
express my appreciation and gratitude to Professor George Guthrie for
introducing me to foundational questions in the study of philosophy
during my student years at the University of Toledo; to Professors
Schubert Ogden and David Tracy for their careful reading and criticism
of this manuscript; and especially to my advisor, Professor Langdon
Gilkey, for his encouragement, criticisms, and suggestions during my
graduate study at the Divinity School, The University of Chicago.
Most importantly, I want to thank my wife Anna, to whom this book
is dedicated, for sharing with me her strength, creativity and love.
Chico, California Charles E. Winquist
January 18,1972
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The Current Dilemma
Contemporary religious thought is deeply influenced by the secular
ization of modern culture. This means that religious language is not
anchored in the everyday conversations of ordinary men. Instead,
religious language, theological or mythological, seems obscure and alien
to our cultural experience.
The concept of a secular or profane world belongs to the recent
history of man and forces upon the theologian or historian of religions
the task of revalorizing myths, symbols, rituals, and religious languages
of past cultures if his work is to be significant in the contemporary
situation. Mircea Eliade claims that because desacralization pervades
the entire experience of modern nonreligious man, it is difficult to
understand the existential character of religious experience in the life
of archaic man.! We can extend this claim and assert that it is very
difficult for the contemporary theologian or historian of religions to
understand the existential dimensions of religious experience in our
very recent past.
Such an awareness has prompted Michael Novak to claim that "Those
who believe in God are now the chief bearers of the tradition of dissent."2
He feels that it is our task to undertake an essay in "revisionary meta
physics" proposing a language for expressing experiences about which
today's philosophers are silent.3
Even if we don't envision as part of our responsibility the construc
tion of a revisionary metaphysics, we must recognize the need for a
serious investigation into the significance of religious language since a
1 Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harper and Row, I96I), p. I3.
2 Michael Novak, Belief and Unbelief (New York: New American Library, I967), p. I6.
3 Ibid., p. 40. Novak refers to P. F. Strawson's concept of a "revisionary metaphysics."
2 INTRODUCTION
symptom of our secular culture is the emptiness of religious language.
On the surface of our cultural experience it has become increasingly
difficult to locate any dimensions of transcendence which will lend
content to religious language.4 Thus, before religious studies can be
considered as a relevant discipline within our cultural situation, it must
recognize and constructively respond to the importance of secularity
and the consequent impoverishment of religious language.5 This in
quiry is properly transcendental. We are asking about the possibility
of religious discourse and this is a necessary prolegomenon to the
constructive use of religious language.
The disintegration of religious discourse can be viewed from within a
theological perspective or examined by the historian of religions. In
either situation it is the foremost problem facing a contemporary
student of western religions.
From within Christianity we hear theologians requiring of their
discipline that it speak apologetically to every generation.6 Theology
must be continually aware of the shape of man's self-understanding in
the generation to which it is speaking. This is the basis of Paul Tillich's
method of correlation. Theology is responsible for correlating the
message of the Christian gospel with the questions implied in our
cultural and existential situations. 7
If the spirit which shapes the cultural life of our epoch is predomi
nately secular, then theology must define its task in relationship to the
problems of belief and unbelief which belong to secularism.8
Since the language of self-awareness within a secular milieu does not
in itself imply dimensions of ultimacy, it becomes the apologetic task
of the theologian to revalorize a language of transcendence.
This does not mean that the theologian should become a philologist.
In fact, the linguistic turn in recent philosophy creates serious problems
for the theologian in our secular age. For example, Ludwig Wittgenstein
would deny that there is a single essence to language which could help
the theologian come to understanding of his task.9 We need to turn to
the concrete experience of using language to understand its scope and,
4 Langdon Gilkey, Naming the Whirlwind: The Renewal 0/ God Language (Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), p. 13.
5 Ibid., p. 10.
a Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (3 vols.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953-64),
1,3.
7 Ibid., pp. 8, 31, 59-64.
8 For an excellent description of our cultural spirit see Gilkey, Chapter II.
e Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), p. 31.
INTRODUCTION 3
significance. He claims that when a child learns his native language, it is
very clear that the meaning of the child's words lies in their use.10
The importance of Wittgenstein's statement for our inquiry is that
before we can meaningfully talk about religious language we will have
to locate the uses of such a language in the realm of the secular. This
does not mean that we will simply do an analysis of the secular uses of
language. In fact, we find ourselves turning away from the silence of
ordinary language when seeking dimensions of transcendence. 11 We are
seeking possibilities for the development of a new language which
embraces and revalorizes our past theologies as well as speaking to
contemporary man.
It seems strange that so many theologians have embraced secular
ization as a liberating force rather than understanding it as a threat to
the theological task. The secular world makes no distinction between
secularization and secularism.12 Bernard Meland focuses on some of the
dangers of secularization in The Realities oj Faith.
For our problem of secularization is not simply a matter of conceiving the world
within or without the transcendent vision. It is a question of being responsive to
realities within experience which evoke in man a sense of his relation to something
ultimate or significant, be it truth or goodness, or some dimension of value
inherent in himself, which lights up his existence with meaning beyond the
terms of physical realities.
In defining secularization as a pathology in the social process affecting taste
and judgment, following from a truncation of the human experience in which
ideal and spiritual values are disregarded or denied to man, one is not so apt to
interpret its meaning within a single point of view or philosophy. Instead one
will see that it is a condition and response within human existence which dis
regards all intrinsic meaning as this applies to man, and thus deprives him of
dignity or of a personal destiny.I3
The theologian sacrifices a responsiveness to the wholeness of man if he
uncritically adopts secularism, and yet his work is irrelevant if he ignores
the presence of secularism in our culture. We must agree with Langdon
Gilkey that the expression of the gospel must be in categories which
are meaningful in our culture; but, we must not completely capitulate
to any cultural Geist.14
Part of the theologian's task is to understand the meaning of meaning
and its relationship to language. Antecedent to the development of a
10 Ibid., pp. 4-6.
11 Cf. Novak, Belief and Unbelief, p. 68.
12 See Gilkey's discussion of Harvey Cox and F. Gogarten. Gilkey, p. 26.
13 Bernard Meland, The Realities of Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), p.
63·
14 Gilkey, p. 36.