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Augustine
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Posted -
2004/3/5 下午 05:21:23
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Philosophical Origins of Subjectivism
The roots of subjectivism are to be looked for in immanentism or the denial of the transcendence of God.
But one could object here that immanence is not the same thing as immanentism. Something is immanent if it is internal in a being (e.g., God with regard to the world) without necessarily excluding transcendence. God would be, the objection goes, both immanent and transcendent, inasmuch as the universe exists by the power of God.
The transcendence of God implies therefore immanence as a mode of presence. On the other hand, immanentism is that doctrine which excludes the transcendence of God in the world.
God is immanent in the world but he is transcendent, that is, essentially distinct from his creatures.
"The term of presence as opposed to immanence expresses the progress of the Christian conception, which is founded on the absolute transcendence and liberty of God." (Fabro "Immanenza," Enciclopedia Cattolica).
We should distinguish between the presence of God in the world (the Christian concept) and modern immanence, which flows into pantheism.
The principle of immanentism was already implicit in the cogito ergo sum of Descartes (d. 1650), that is, in the primacy of thought over reality. Thought for Descartes does not depend on the real, the object of thought becomes thought itself, and not reality. Thought is separated from the real and is sufficient unto itself. Spinoza (d. 1667) goes much further: for him "God is the immanent cause of all things" (Ethics, I, 48).
Kant (d. 1804) makes from the principle of immanence the fundamental rule of knowing: thought is an a priori synthesis (subjective a priori forms).
Post-kantian idealism takes this principle to its ultimate conclusion. It denies the objectivity which Kant conceded to the phenomenon. Fichte (d. 1814) said, "The thing is what is posited by the Ego."
Finally comes Hegel (d. 1831) with his absolute idealism, which criticizes and goes beyond even that of Fichte, inasmuch as the Ego of Fichte is still something objective, while for Hegel everything is becoming and affirms itself by denying (dialectics). Modern thought from humanism all the way to Vatican II displays its immanentistic bent even to the total elimination of religious transcendence.
So, everything is "becoming", ever "evoluting", hence "living"---? through a series of dialectics-thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Even the Church is in the process of this series of Hegelian synthesis.
While the various currents of human thought both in the past and at the present have tended and still tend to separate theocentrism and anthropocentrism, and even to set them in opposition to each other, the post-conciliar Church, following Christ, [the "cosmic" Christ—CN] seeks to link them up in human history in a deep and organic way.
So, as the great theologian taught: "men, like Christ in the incarnation, are graced out of necessity", all men are automatically lesser partakers of the Incarnation, as Christ (God) chose to become a man, we men are naturally graced with the supernatural grace of God. In short, men are mini-Gods!
We can say that the philosopher who is the animator par excellence of the immanentistic tendency of the conciliar magisterium is, without a doubt, Hegel. For him, in fact, the problem of God is the true problem of philosophy. Hegel is the supreme pontiff of modern philosophy. "Philosophy has no other object than God." (Hegel, Aesthetics)
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