Spiritual Dynamism in Maréchal

SPIRITUAL DYNAMISM IN MARECHAL JOSEPH MARECHAL'S major philosophical contribution was his development in Thomism of the dynamism of the intellect. He attempted to confront the static idealism of Kant with the tendential nature of cognition as he found it in St. Thomas and hereby to release Kantianism from the knowing subject and bring it into the objective world.1 Marechal was a convinced Thomist in the fervor of the revival, and he approached his chosen task from this peculiar metaphysical point of view. Thus, many who follow his general thought will use a different means of analysis and evidence for their conclusions. But Marechal's own analysis retains some value and has been fruitfully utilized in other fields. Gilleman's analysis of the dynamism of the moral subject and the role of the moral act are professedly Marechalian in inspiration.2 The approach to the moral subject in terms of final option is at least indirectly rooted in Marechal's analysis of the nature of human dynamism. Although German idealists constitute a major influence on Marechal's thought, he derived his theses of intellectual dynamism from the Thomism common to scholastic philosophers. In Marechal's presentation we can trace the scholastic origins of his theory. Our attempt here is to explicate Marechal's understanding of the spiritual dynamism of man as he finds it presented in St. Thomas. In a previous article we have sketched the discussion of the intellectual dynamism in the context of the problem of objectification and the proof of the existence of God.3 At the present time we would like to approach this dynamism from another angle, through the discussion of the 1 J. Marechal, Le point de depart de la metaphysique, Cahier V (Paris, 19ft6), pp. 4-5, !l91. • G. Gilleman, The Primacy of Charity in Moral Theology, trans!. W. Ryan and A. Vachon (Westminster, 1959), cf. Part II, Ch. II, note 4. • P. Burns, "The Marechalian Approach to the Existence of God," Tke New Scholasticism, XLII (1968), pp. 7~90. 5!!8 SPIRITUAL DYNAMISM IN MARECHAL 5~9 relation of the intellect and will. These faculties were studied by Marechal in their mutual relations within the tendential spirituality of man. Marechal finds evidence of a tendency to action innate in the intellect in the Thomistic analysis of two operations of the human intellect, assimilation of the specifications of the object of knowledge and the objectifying affirmation of these specifications in the relation of logical truth. Further investigation of the significance of these processes will reveal the relationship between intellect and will as they mediate the profound spiritual tendency of man. Although the intellect must receive from the external object the matter of its knowing operation, it does not stand passive before the object and react to outside stimulation. Rather, the elaboration of the intelligible species is a process originated and completed by the intellect itself on the occasion of the presence of objective determinations in the phantasm.4 The intellect, therefore, must move itself into action rather than receiving its operation from the object. A tendency toward the assimilation of sensible determinations which only awaits the conditions permitting its activity is innate in the human intellect. Man has an active tendency to knowing as a constitutive element of his intellectual nature, ontologically prior to all activity. The process of objectification which immediately follows assimilation further reveals this dynamic tendency. The relation of logical truth established by the ontological affirmation asserts conformity of the contents of the intellect to the real object.5 But the specifications of the object assimilated by the intellect represent only the dematerialized form of a sensible object. Because of a double indetermination-in individuation and in the order of being-the representative content of the species is not adequate to the real object. The affirmation establishing a relation of logical truth must complement the species' lack of individuation and supply for the debility of • Marechal, op. cit., pp. H!4 ff. • Ibid., pp. 78-77. 580 J. PATOUT BURNS its being. Without such elaboration the representative content cannot be referred to objective existence. The individuation is provided by reflective conversion to the phantasm and through it to matter...