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A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE IN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY and theology the old hegemony of Scholastic thought has crumbled. New categories , biblical, scientific, and existential, have been introduced . Now, instead of academic disputes within a scholastic framework about the real distinction, the meaning of esse, etc., the problem of fundamental communication hits us full in the face. " Your categories are not mine; how, therefore, do we agree upon a method of research? " Everywhere one finds the methodological question and intellectual pluralism. Once various view-points have been admitted as legitimate, however, the question of truth is unavoidable. To reply that the Hebrew notion of historical fidelity to God or to people does not coincide with the Greek notion of timeless, abstract truths does not resolve the tension but sharpens it for a Christian thinker. K. Rahner rightly attacked H. Kting's Infallible? not so much for questioning papal infallibility as for denying man the possibility of validly affirming speculative truths that transcend the temporal conditions of the knower.1 Amidst the welter of theologies and philosophies, how does one avoid relativism? How can one justify a permanent commitment to Christ that can be rationally defended and not judged merely a psychological aberration of equal or less value than other personal quirks? This paper intends to offer an exit from the relativistic conundrum bedeviling modern thought. We do not start with a definition of truth and deduce everything from there. The limitation of such a narrow, Procrustean bed is too obvious. To overcome relativism one must find an Absolute. The only true Absolute in human experience is God. Hence our starting point 1 K. Rahner, S. J., "Kritik an Hans Kung," Stimmen der Zeit 186 (1970), 368-376. U9 220 JOHN M, MCDERMOTT, S.J. must involve an affirmation of God's existence. Not that the Absolute is known directly in this life; rather He is known mediately in and through an experience that may be qualified as absolute. We intend to offer: 1) a phenomenological description of the moral experience, 2) a proof of God's existence and the continuance of the human person after death, 3) a critique of the proof offered, 4) a reflection on the basic philosophic problem, 5) a redemption of the proof offered, and 6) an indication of some of the dilemmas of thought which the new approach resolves. PART I: PHENOMENOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION To avoid the charge of Christian bias, our phenomenological description employs mainly examples of moral behavior elaborated in classical antiquity. Both Achilles and Socrates have haunted Western consciousness from the beginnings of our civilization. The angry son of Thetis rebelliously overturned the heroic code by refusing the huge bribe of Agamemnon communicated by Odysseus. He softened only to the pleas of other members of the embassy for friendship's sake, Patroclus's tears brought a further relentment from ire; finally, the death of this dear friend drove him to commitment, the revenge demanded by justice, knowing full well that his own death followed Hector 's. Socrates explicitly imitated Achilles's example, preferring death to betraying the task of philosophizing assigned by the god.2 In such classical examples four essential characteristics of the moral imperative may be discerned. 1. The moral imperative is absolute. Both Achilles and Socrates knew that they should do what they did. This " shouldness " is basic to morality. It is unique, elevating the moral experience above all other value experiences. Possible penchants for ease, quiet, beauty, glory, and science must yield to it. Even family affections may be severed by its demands. No other value gives rise to such heart-rending qualms or exuberant •Plato, Apology 28 b-d. A NEW APPROACH TO GOD'S EXISTENCE 221 ecstasy: Fiat justitia, pereat mundus. Ultimately grounding this primacy in the hierarchy of values is the absoluteness felt in its demands. One must be ready to die in heeding its voice. That is the first meaning of Achilles and Socrates for us: faithfulness even unto death. They illustrate the limits to which the demand can go. In bidding man to die the moral imperative reveals itself as absolute. It is the ultimate Reality, Being, before which finite being apparently becomes...

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