A Mariological metametaphysics

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a theological grounding for the possibility of metaphysics. After a brief critique of the seeming contemporary revival of analytic philosophy as characterized by linguisticism, the two main sections give a Christological and ultimately Mariological foundation for the possibility of metaphysics. The Christological section starts with the role of the second person of the Trinity in creation, and subsequently points to the hypostatic union as ensuring that creation is therefore accessible to the human mind. It also implies that reality is fundamentally of a personal nature, and that personal knowledge can be relatively unproblematically acquired by other persons. The Mariological section starts from Plato’s Diotima as a prefigurement of Mary, and subsequently portrays Mary as the perfect metaphysician, guaranteeing the possibility of metaphysics as an enterprise of natural reason. Doing justice to the critique of an at times overly naive pre-modern metaphysics can then be done by advocating a Christological and Mariological turn for the Copernican revolution, e.g. fully taking into account the historicity of being and thinking. In conclusion, Mary as the handmaid of the Lord is analogous to metaphysics as the handmaid of theology, in a relationship of a loving daughter, mother and bride.

KEYWORDS:

• Metaphysics
• Mary
• Mariology
• Diotima

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Kreeft and Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, 14.

2. Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.”

3. Frankfurt, “Some Thoughts Concerning PAP,” 339.

4. It is therefore congenial to the project of a theological philosophy, cf. Schumacher, Theological Philosophy: Rethinking the Rationality of Christian Faith (Transcending Boundaries in Philosophy and Theology).

5. Martin and Heil, “The Ontological Turn,” 36.

6. Author’s translation of: ‘ein Großteil der heute unter der Überschrift »Metaphysik« veröffentlichten englischen Texte ist immer noch sprachanalytisch’ von Wachter, Die Kausale Struktur Der Welt, 33.

7. Armstrong, A World of States of Affairs, 80.

8. Von Wachter quotes Meixner as unearthing this kind of presupposition: ‘[U]m an die Grundstrukturen des Wirklichen und Nichtwirklichen erkenntnismäßig heranzukommen, betrachten wir die Grundstrukturen der Sprache, mit der wir über das Wirkliche und Nichtwirkliche sprechen. […] [Glücklicherweise] hat sich das, was im Fluss der Erfahrung allgemeinst-strukturell ist, immer schon in der Sprache niedergeschlagen, hat sich dort quasi versteinert und ist somit konstant vor unseren Augen: In den Strukturen der Sprache, wobei die Strukturen der Sprache nicht etwa schon mit ihrer reinen Syntax oder Grammatik gegeben ist, sondern ihre semantischen Strukturenmitumfassen. Die Sprache ist sozusagen das Instrument, das uns die Grundstrukturen des Wirklichen und Nichtwirklichen enthüllt.’ Meixner, Einführung in die Ontologie, 11., as quoted in von Wachter, Die Kausale Struktur Der Welt, 32.

9. ‘Mir fehlt der Glaube, daß sich durch Untersuchung von Sprache metaphysische Fragen beantworten lassen. Mir fehlt der Glaube, daß die Strukturen der Wirklichkeit so in der Sprache »versteinert« sind, wie Meixner und Bergmann es beschreiben, und so, wie es sein müßte, damit sich durch Sprachanalyse metaphysische Fragen beantworten ließen.’ von Wachter, Die Kausale Struktur Der Welt, 32–33.

10. Boulter, “The Medieval Origins of Conceivability Arguments.” A later version is to be found in Boulter, Metaphysics from a Biological Point of View.

11. The idea for this subtitle (i.e. Why metaphysics needs Christianity) stems from prof. Henning Tegtmeyer, who at the beginning of his lecture entitled ‘Why Christianity needs metaphysics’ (at the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy, on the 16th of December 2015, organized by the Leuven Newman Society), mentioned the possibility and meaningfulness of inverting the title of his lecture.

12. Einstein, “Physik Und Realität,” 315.

13. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 173.

14. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 13–14.

15. Cf. Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination.

16. Cf. Mumford and Anjum, Getting Causes from Powers, 214–215.

17. All scripture quotes are from the Douay-Rheims translation, in its 1899 edition of the Challoner revisions.

18. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, IaIIae pr.

19. The author thanks Jared Schumacher for pointing out this connection, cf. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy.

20. Cf. the saying of St. Thomas Aquinas after experiencing the mystical vision near the end of his life and being pressed by his secretary why he did not continue writing: ‘Raynalde, non possum quia omnia que scripsi videntur mihi palee.’ […] ‘Omnia que scripsi videntur michi palee respectu eorum que vidi et revelata sunt michi.’ [‘Reginald, I can’t because all the things I have written appear to me as straws.’ […] ‘All the things I have written appear to me as straws in comparison to those which I have seen and have been revealed to me.’] Prümmer, Fontes Vitae S. Thomae Aquinatis, Notis Historicis et Criticis Illustrati, 377.

21. Augustine of Hippo, “On Christian Doctrine,’” 519.

22. Cantuariensis, Three Philosophical Dialogues: On Truth, On Freedom of Choice, On the Fall of the Devil, 20.

23. Plato, “Symposium,” 580–581.

24. This argument is made at somewhat greater length in Bauwens, ‘Will We Be Free (to Sin) in Heaven?’.

25. Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, 81.

26. Arendt, The Life Of The Mind Volume 2: Willing.

27. Author’s translation of: ‘Ist nämlich die faktische Welt ein Zusammenhang von durch Gott kontingent gewählten, aber formal aus sich bestehenden Möglichkeiten, dann ist sie in ihren Strukturen und Gesetzen der menschlichen Erforschung zugleich bedürftig und zugänglich. Weil das Ensemble kontingent gewählt ist, ist aposteriorisch-empirische Kenntnisnahme notwendig, weil ihm notwendige Möglichkeit zugrundeliegt, ist dessen nomologische Erklärung möglich.’ Honnefelder, “Die Kritik des Johannes Duns Scotus am kosmologischen Nezessitarismus der Araber: Ansätze zu einem neuen Freiheitsbegriff,” 263.

28. For further references and an application, cf. Bauwens, “The Ontology of Fractional Reserve Banking.”

29. For efforts in this direction, cf. Hülsmann, “Facts and Counterfactuals in Economic Law”; Bauwens, ‘Freedom, Counterfactuals and Economic Laws.’

30. Plato, “Symposium,” 576–577.

31. Ibid.,, 582.

32. For a metaphysical treatment of one such major stumbling block, cf. Bauwens, “Louis XIV and the Metaphysics of a Juridical Christology (forthcoming).”

33. Although at this point one can start to explore a Mariology of the priesthood in relation to the act of consecration.

34. Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings, 96. The original German reads ‘die Betrachtung’ where the translation gives ‘this consideration’, which is rather odd and can give a twisted interpretation. It would be better to translate ‘die Betrachtung’ here as ‘philosophical contemplation’ – the author thanks Falk Hamann for confirming this change. Using vulgar capitalist phrases, Marx and Kant to support a Mariological metametaphysics is a sort of Mariologia abscondita sub contrario – pun intended.

35. Hence, Kant was wrong when he stated in the sixth thesis of the Idea for a Universal History that ‘from such crooked wood as man is made of, nothing perfectly straight can be built’ – Mary was perfectly built. Moreover, Kant was there addressing the perennial problem in political philosophy of who will guard the guardians, and coupled with the preceding sentence – ‘The highest master should be just in himself, and yet a man.’ – it can be used to ground the universal queenship of Mary. Cf. Kant, On History, 17.

36. More precisely, by Rev. Prof. Martin Moors, on the 29th of October 2014, in a seminar on John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio, at the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy, organized by the Leuven Newman Society.

37. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 56.

38. Reppert, C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason.

39. Benedict XVI, “Glaube, Vernunft Und Universität. Erinnerungen Und Reflexionen.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Onderzoeksraad, KU Leuven [GOA project: The Crisis of Religion and the Problem of Roman Catholic Self-Definition].

Notes on contributors

Michaël Bauwens

Michaël Bauwens obtained his MA, MPhil and PhD in philosophy from the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy. His dissertation was on the metaphysics of institutions, and his wider research connects this to the philosophy of economics and to philosophical theology. He has recent contributions in ‘Heaven and Philosophy’ (ed. S. Cushing), ‘Purgatory: philosophical dimensions’ (ed. K. Vanhoutte and B. McCraw), and has published, among others, in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, the Journal of Institutional Economics, and the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour.