Dogma and Heresy Revisited: A Heideggerian Approach

DOGMA AND HERESY REVISITED: A HEIDEGGERIAN APPROACH IN APPLYING a particular philosophical perspective. to a theological problem, one must be careful to avoid forcing theological data to conform to an ontology. It is easily assumed that since ontology provides a general account of being (and theology deals with being), ontology can account for the being which is of concern to theology. This view supposes that being is intelligible; between a coherent ontology and a critically reflective theology there should be no contradiction. Indeed, without such a presupposition theology could never be in dialogue with other branches of learning. A theology of revelation, for example, depends upon a particular account of human being and reflects some underlying ontological scheme. Is this not what happens in Paul Tillich's "method of correlation"? Tillich analyzed human being in a way that exposes its openness to and need for revelation; revelation is complementary to human being in its natural, estranged existence.1 Karl Rahner and Ray Hart have made similar moves: anthropology undergoes a transposition to become theological anthropology.2 For Bernard Lonergan, philosophy anticipates theology as the higher viewpoint on God, human being, and the world.8 But there is a difficulty. By approaching theology by way of philosophy, does the "structure" of revelation get interpreted in advance through a metaphysical anthropology? To some degree, it does; attempts to describe revelation primarily in biblical rather than philosophical categories bear witness to this 1 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, 8 vols. (Chicago, 1951), 1: 59-66. 2 See Karl Rahner, Hearers of the Word, trans. Michael Richards (New York, 1969), and Ray Hart, Unfinished Man and the Imagination (New York, 1968). 8 Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (New York, 1957) , chapter !20. 509 510 WILLIAM REISER, S.J. difficulty.4 One could maintain that revelation has already transformed human being so that ontology reflects a nature which lies under grace; religion and the question about God belong to the existential condition of human being. For Rahner , general revelation has already occurred as the historical manifestation of God's universal salvific will.5 But it is Rahner 's ontology that renders his view of revelation intelligible. He proceeds (as many theologians do) on the supposition that ontology discloses universal features of human being; his philosophical account of human being is therefore universal.6 But the same philosophical account could be supposed by any religion , for the description itself is indifferent to determinate religious community; it describes human nature as such. An alternative approach is to start with human existence as concretely modified ,by a particular, determinate religious community .7 Human nature is always located in determinate contexts which are provided by specific histories, languages, and cultures. Thus, while temporality is a feature of human being as such, the temporality of a Buddhist world view and that of a Christian world view may be different.8 It is a little misleading to talk about human nature in universal terms because what exist are actual, historical, and culturally concrete people ; this cultural concreteness is manifested through language, social structure, and tradition. Human nature does not exist in a detached sort of way. One uncovers what human nature means by searching in the direction of greater concreteness rather than in the direction of greater abstraction. 4 See the" Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation" (Dei Verbum) in The Documents of Vatican II, ed. Walter Abbott (New York. 1966), and volume S of the Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York, 1969), pp. 155-272. Also, Gabriel Moran, Theology of Revelation (New York, 1966). 5 Karl Rahner, "History of the World and Salvation-History" and "Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions," Theological Investigations, volume 5, trans. Karl-H. Kruger (London, 1966), pp. 97-184. 6 See Karl Rahner, Spirit in the World, trans. Wm. Dych (New York, 1968). 7 See Edward Farley, Ecclesial Man (Philadelphia, 1975), pp. 57-64. 8 Farley, pp. 92-98. Also, see John B. Cobb, Jr., The Structure of Christian Existence (Philadelphia, 1967) . DOGMA AND HERESY REVISITED 511 Edward Farley refers to the way in which abstract features of human being are concretely modified in determinate social contexts as...