Monday, January 2, 2012

Hauerwas on Univocity

A fascinating quote from Tracy Rowland's article in the Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, p. 590.

Modernity, drawing on the metaphysics of a transcendent god, was the attempt to be historical without Christ. Postmodernity, facing the agony of living in history with no end, is the denial of history. In the wake of such a denial, the only remaining comfort is the shopping mall, which gives us the illusion of creating histories through choice, thus hiding from us the reality that none of us can avoid having our lives determined by money. Money, in modernity, is the institutionalization of the univocity of being that Scotus thought necessary to ensure the unmediated knowledge of God.

This from a god of this age.  I suppose such comments aren't worth responding to, as this just more of the same drivel we've seen many times from the pomo crowd. So just one brief comment: Scotus did not argue for univocity in order to guarantee the unmediated knowledge of God.  "Unmediated" knowledge would be the direct vision of the divine essence had by the blessed in the next life.  Univocity is a property of terms or concepts used in syllogistic discourse.  What Scotus was actually trying to do was to avoid fallacies of equivocation when making theological arguments in this life.

6 comments:

Marty said...

Hey Lee,

Won't knowledge of God in the next life still be mediated given that God will still be transcendant to his creation then?

CHeers,

Marty.

Lee Faber said...

Hi Marty,

As far as I can tell, the scholastics think that there will still be the creature/creator/finite/infinite divide, but that because of st. paul's statement that we will see him as he is they generally think that there will be direct knowledge of the divine essence, without recourse to intelligible species. But this doesn't mean the knowledge will be comprehensive, covering the entirety of the infinite divine essence. It is still finite knowledge, but I suppose one could say the mode or means of knowing change.

Marty said...

Hey Lee,

Thanks so much for your response. That's absolutely fascinating. Is that in fact what Scotus himself thinks?

Blessings,

Marty.

Lee Faber said...

Pretty much. There are arguments over what role intelligible species play, if any, and the status of the 'light of glory' but my previous comment sums it up.

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Marty said...

Thanks Lee!