The Philosophical Approach to God: A New Thomistic Perspective, 2nd Edition

Why the Inner Path Is Insufficient

Why the Inner Path Is Insufficient Why is the inner path to God through the dynamism of the human spirit insufficient by itself to deliver the full content of the traditional notion of God? If taken strictly by itself, as proceeding in the order of final causality alone, this approach does deliver, I think, eminently reasonable grounds for affirming the existence of an infinitely perfect being as my God, my ultimate fulfillment of both intellect and will. But this conclusion does not of itself give me the warrant to assert this same God as the ultimate source of all being, including my own. In a word, it does not deliver the knowledge of God as Creator of all things. To know God as Omega, as goal, is not ipso facto to know Him as Alpha, as source. It is indeed plausible to suppose that, once we have discovered the existence of an infinite being as our goal, it will also turn out to be the Source of all finite beings. Still, 39 40 The Philosophical Approach to God the argument from final causality by itself does not deliver this conclusion explicitly. Yet without this conclusion we do not yet know the true God in His full meaning: as at once my God and God of the cosmos. The God of authentic religion must always be both, the God of Genesis as well as Exodos. To reach this fuller conclusion I must make a new start. I must turn to the rest of the vast universe of beings outside myself and raise the question for them as to what they need to fulfill the exigencies of intelligibility respecting their own actual existence. I have seen that God is needed to make ultimate sense out of my life as the ultimate goal of its dynamic tendency . Is He needed to make ultimate sense for me out of their being as well, as the very source of their being, and of mine too? The questions, though closely connected, are not identical. Nor can they be answered by the same argument. This point is sometimes forgotten by enthusiasts for the inner path, including by some Transcendental Thomists. The inner path and the cosmic path are sisters who must walk hand in hand if they are to reach their common goal of the true God. What we need to do, then, is to raise the question of the intelligibility of the whole realm of the beings of my experience, and then of all finite beings. The answer to this question cannot be found in the dynamism of my own spirit considered in itself alone, but in the wider reach of the metaphysics of being itself. Or, if you wish, it will be found in the application of the dynamism of my intelligence to the quest for the intelligibility of all being. To be fair to those Transcendental Thomists who prefer to combine the two approaches in a single argument from the dynamism of the spirit, as does Father Donceel in his Why the Inner Path Is Insufficient 41 Natural Theology, I think it is possible to develop the argument in such a way that it would include both thrusts of the mind as complementary movements toward the fullness of intelligibility . For the same act of rebounding of the mind beyond any and all finites can be unfolded under two aspects: one is the necessary movement toward the Infinite as the search for the fulfillment of my own dynamism as such, quite independent of this particular finite being I am rebounding beyond; the other is the necessary movement of the mind toward the Infinite as searching for the full intelligibility of this very finite being itself I have just laid hold of and am trying to understand. The two are indeed closely intertwined, and perhaps only abstractly separable. However, the two modalities of explanation through final cause or goal and through efficient cause or origin still seem to me so distinct in the reasons grounding them that it is a little confusing to fuse them into a single argument without leaving too much implicit. Hence I prefer to follow out the two lines separately, partly for the sake of clarity, partly to maintain my links with the long and explicit tradition of analysis through efficient causality that is so deeply ingrained...