A Personal God: Does It Matter?
Edward Holloway
To affirm that God exists as 'transcendent' means, in the language of theology, that God is Personal and exists independently of creation. He is self explanatory, self-sufficient, and infinite. The creation need not exist. It does exist, and is explained, only because of Him.
If God is not transcendental then God must be immanent in the creation; God emerges in space and time through us, the intelligent human creature. Therefore God speaks in history only in so far as He speaks through the consciousness of men, and the teaching we ascribe to God revealing is subject to historic relativism, which means to say, the limitations of given men at a given age, in a given culture. There is no escape in that case from the closed circuit of the prime principle of the Reformation, - the subjection of doctrine to human understanding.
If God is transcendental however then there follows this vision: all creation is gathered up and poised in its being by the Alone Necessary and Almighty God, upon the destiny it has to climax in Christ, the Heir of the Ages. This Christ is God the Word, God in Person, literally Divine, and Transcendent. The alternative is that creation, as it evolves, throws up Omega-points, or 'Christ points' in its development, as the race of mankind proceeds to 'Christo-genesis', to a becoming divine which embraces the whole stock.
The process, and its interpretation, is subject to human wisdom, and human judgement. In so much as Teilhard de Chardin for instance reduces the Christ of historic Christianity, so much is he but quite unconsciously the greater than Christ. The same is true, much more true for those intensely arrogant Nordic theologians, the Ebelings, the Bultmanns, the Fuchs, the Marxsens, the Pannenbergs, and the rest, who have reduced Christ to their own personal interpretation of a dead book.
For Teilhard, Christ is at least a mighty person, even if unconsciously made in the image and likeness of the Phenomenon which is Man: for these Germans Christ is just 'the event'. He could not be more of course, because they only know Him by what they ironically name 'faith', meaning that they just do not have any adequate historic evidence about Him at all.
But if God is transcendent, then Christ is literally divine, 'God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, of one Being with the Father'. Also if He is divine, the Church must be infallible and magisterial, and the development of her doctrine, though not necessarily forseeable from the limited understanding reached by men of an age before, must follow with direct continuity, and without any loss or diminution of doctrine of faith or morals. This is because the Holy Spirit -who also happens to be transcendent - is the 'soul of the Church' and guides her into that one fulness of truth which is a living unity in the intellect of God the Logos, the Word of God, alias Jesus Christ. This total meaning which is one living unity in the Divine Word, is possible because He is also transcendent.
If God is not transcendent, but immanent, part of man himself, then there is no authority higher than the mind of man, which is God emerging in history. There is no divine rule or guidance, outside of man, and the limits of purely human history. There is no literal Divinity in Christ. Even if you think there is, you cannot prove it. There is most certainly not any infallibility in the Church, and the Christ we know and reverence could very possibly be superseded. In any case (one nearly wrote 'event'), Christ, becomes one figure measured on a finite scale against other figures in the religious anthropology of man (which used to be known as 'theology'). So there is quite a lot at stake in that word 'transcendent'.
Prime Principle of Catholic Christianity
The transcendence of God is also the prime principle of Catholic Christianity. It means that God is HE WHO IS, at all times, independently of the universe, and through the free will of that God the universe of angels, matter, and men, came into existence. There is also, in the likeness of this God, the transcendence of the soul over man. That is to say that the intelligent principle in man is not material, and does not evolve with matter or through matter. Matter in man, is that which is controlled and directed; soul, or spirit, is that which controls and directs matter: for matter is deterministic of very being.
This is the heart of the matter. If you don't consider it important whether there is a distinction "between that which controls and directs, and that which is controlled and directed" then you won't consider it important whether God is transcendent or not. If you don't think it matters, then in fact you have said already that God is not transcendent. That means to say He is not Personal, not distinct from the creation, not the direct controller of the mind of man, not a literally Divine Incarnation in Jesus Christ, and there is no objective, magisterial infallibility in the Church or anywhere else.
The word transcendental covers the whole difference between a theology of God who made man, teaches and governs man, fulfils and saves man and a theology of 'God' who is in fact man's own spirit and mind, made conscious in history as idealism and seeking for the good and true. This is the whole difference between Catholicism and a Humanism flavoured with a Christianity which is now 'post', or gone.
When we say that the Eternal Word, the second and transcendent person of the Holy Trinity became flesh for us, then we mean that Jesus Christ is literally God in the Divine Person. There is only one Personality in Jesus - the divine personality - but in both the nature of God and the nature of man, these remaining truly distinct from each other. It means that Jesus brings the Divine Transcendence which prompted the Law and the Prophets and the Scriptures, into human history as both a divine and a human fulfilment of the order of mankind.
Since Christ sent out His apostles with exactly the same mission as His own, therefore there is transcendence, that is to say divine truth, divine power to rule and divine power to command the conscience of man in the name of the maker of man's being, and of man's conscience, in the very constitution of the Church of God.
There can be no vindication to-day of the Christian gospel, unless in this hour of disintegration we can educe from the entire heritage of the Church, a new development in philosophy and theology. It must itself be coherent with, but expanding from the pre-Conciliar life of the Church, and manifest the divinity which is within her, by offering to men, from the magistracy of Christ, that control, direction and fulfilment in his life and social order which the nature of man demonstrably requires.
Such a renewal is within our power, it is only arrogance and pride which holds it back. Lord Hailsham, writing in The Times, proclaimed that we needed a new Aquinas, a new 'Doctor Angelicus'. The first need is really for a Pauline era. We need the perspective of the Faith to be seen and taught through the vision of modern, scientific mankind, pagan and gentile though society be at the moment. It can be done, but it must proceed from the prime principle of Catholicism, from the transcendental, which ultimately means the truly divine and truly magisterial.
It cannot proceed from the prime principle of the Churches of the Reformation, which is private judgement, the immanent, the mind of Man made the measure of God. We may hope and pray that a true movement towards unity will mean the reunion - in doctrine, communion and spiritual perfection - of the Church of England with the Church of Rome. There could be many coming from the East and the West, from Anglicans and Free Churchmen, but, at the same time, there will be many staying on, just as they were, or rather declining further through the agnosticism from which none of the Churches of the Reformation can possibly rise without a true and new vision of the meaning of Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
There could also be many, very many, who will go out of the communion of Peter, from the theological Left, and some perhaps from the fundamentalist Right. There could be a great gathering in, and a great exodus as well. What is certain is that we must renew the Church not as an open-ended, agnostic body, but as a strongly centred family of Christ, drawing life, strength, vision and fire from a new vision of Christ and the Church in which not one jot, not one tittle of the former perfection and spiritual idealism, has been erased. There is no other ecumenism which is honest, or which makes sense of the Catholic Church.
There is no other way, ecumenical or otherwise, which can permit the Christian Church to survive into the next century in her historic identity, with a truly divine gospel and with authority from God to preach it to all the nations. It is time to say the truth bluntly, even at the cost of a confrontation. It is also time to proclaim a great hope, with a great faith, but it must be the truly divine God we proclaim, the truly divine Christ, the truly divine magisterium of His Church. There is neither hope, nor beauty and joy, except by a return to this the prime principle of Catholicism.
Edward Holloway
To affirm that God exists as 'transcendent' means, in the language of theology, that God is Personal and exists independently of creation. He is self explanatory, self-sufficient, and infinite. The creation need not exist. It does exist, and is explained, only because of Him.
If God is not transcendental then God must be immanent in the creation; God emerges in space and time through us, the intelligent human creature. Therefore God speaks in history only in so far as He speaks through the consciousness of men, and the teaching we ascribe to God revealing is subject to historic relativism, which means to say, the limitations of given men at a given age, in a given culture. There is no escape in that case from the closed circuit of the prime principle of the Reformation, - the subjection of doctrine to human understanding.
If God is transcendental however then there follows this vision: all creation is gathered up and poised in its being by the Alone Necessary and Almighty God, upon the destiny it has to climax in Christ, the Heir of the Ages. This Christ is God the Word, God in Person, literally Divine, and Transcendent. The alternative is that creation, as it evolves, throws up Omega-points, or 'Christ points' in its development, as the race of mankind proceeds to 'Christo-genesis', to a becoming divine which embraces the whole stock.
The process, and its interpretation, is subject to human wisdom, and human judgement. In so much as Teilhard de Chardin for instance reduces the Christ of historic Christianity, so much is he but quite unconsciously the greater than Christ. The same is true, much more true for those intensely arrogant Nordic theologians, the Ebelings, the Bultmanns, the Fuchs, the Marxsens, the Pannenbergs, and the rest, who have reduced Christ to their own personal interpretation of a dead book.
For Teilhard, Christ is at least a mighty person, even if unconsciously made in the image and likeness of the Phenomenon which is Man: for these Germans Christ is just 'the event'. He could not be more of course, because they only know Him by what they ironically name 'faith', meaning that they just do not have any adequate historic evidence about Him at all.
But if God is transcendent, then Christ is literally divine, 'God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, of one Being with the Father'. Also if He is divine, the Church must be infallible and magisterial, and the development of her doctrine, though not necessarily forseeable from the limited understanding reached by men of an age before, must follow with direct continuity, and without any loss or diminution of doctrine of faith or morals. This is because the Holy Spirit -who also happens to be transcendent - is the 'soul of the Church' and guides her into that one fulness of truth which is a living unity in the intellect of God the Logos, the Word of God, alias Jesus Christ. This total meaning which is one living unity in the Divine Word, is possible because He is also transcendent.
If God is not transcendent, but immanent, part of man himself, then there is no authority higher than the mind of man, which is God emerging in history. There is no divine rule or guidance, outside of man, and the limits of purely human history. There is no literal Divinity in Christ. Even if you think there is, you cannot prove it. There is most certainly not any infallibility in the Church, and the Christ we know and reverence could very possibly be superseded. In any case (one nearly wrote 'event'), Christ, becomes one figure measured on a finite scale against other figures in the religious anthropology of man (which used to be known as 'theology'). So there is quite a lot at stake in that word 'transcendent'.
Prime Principle of Catholic Christianity
The transcendence of God is also the prime principle of Catholic Christianity. It means that God is HE WHO IS, at all times, independently of the universe, and through the free will of that God the universe of angels, matter, and men, came into existence. There is also, in the likeness of this God, the transcendence of the soul over man. That is to say that the intelligent principle in man is not material, and does not evolve with matter or through matter. Matter in man, is that which is controlled and directed; soul, or spirit, is that which controls and directs matter: for matter is deterministic of very being.
This is the heart of the matter. If you don't consider it important whether there is a distinction "between that which controls and directs, and that which is controlled and directed" then you won't consider it important whether God is transcendent or not. If you don't think it matters, then in fact you have said already that God is not transcendent. That means to say He is not Personal, not distinct from the creation, not the direct controller of the mind of man, not a literally Divine Incarnation in Jesus Christ, and there is no objective, magisterial infallibility in the Church or anywhere else.
The word transcendental covers the whole difference between a theology of God who made man, teaches and governs man, fulfils and saves man and a theology of 'God' who is in fact man's own spirit and mind, made conscious in history as idealism and seeking for the good and true. This is the whole difference between Catholicism and a Humanism flavoured with a Christianity which is now 'post', or gone.
When we say that the Eternal Word, the second and transcendent person of the Holy Trinity became flesh for us, then we mean that Jesus Christ is literally God in the Divine Person. There is only one Personality in Jesus - the divine personality - but in both the nature of God and the nature of man, these remaining truly distinct from each other. It means that Jesus brings the Divine Transcendence which prompted the Law and the Prophets and the Scriptures, into human history as both a divine and a human fulfilment of the order of mankind.
Since Christ sent out His apostles with exactly the same mission as His own, therefore there is transcendence, that is to say divine truth, divine power to rule and divine power to command the conscience of man in the name of the maker of man's being, and of man's conscience, in the very constitution of the Church of God.
There can be no vindication to-day of the Christian gospel, unless in this hour of disintegration we can educe from the entire heritage of the Church, a new development in philosophy and theology. It must itself be coherent with, but expanding from the pre-Conciliar life of the Church, and manifest the divinity which is within her, by offering to men, from the magistracy of Christ, that control, direction and fulfilment in his life and social order which the nature of man demonstrably requires.
Such a renewal is within our power, it is only arrogance and pride which holds it back. Lord Hailsham, writing in The Times, proclaimed that we needed a new Aquinas, a new 'Doctor Angelicus'. The first need is really for a Pauline era. We need the perspective of the Faith to be seen and taught through the vision of modern, scientific mankind, pagan and gentile though society be at the moment. It can be done, but it must proceed from the prime principle of Catholicism, from the transcendental, which ultimately means the truly divine and truly magisterial.
It cannot proceed from the prime principle of the Churches of the Reformation, which is private judgement, the immanent, the mind of Man made the measure of God. We may hope and pray that a true movement towards unity will mean the reunion - in doctrine, communion and spiritual perfection - of the Church of England with the Church of Rome. There could be many coming from the East and the West, from Anglicans and Free Churchmen, but, at the same time, there will be many staying on, just as they were, or rather declining further through the agnosticism from which none of the Churches of the Reformation can possibly rise without a true and new vision of the meaning of Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
There could also be many, very many, who will go out of the communion of Peter, from the theological Left, and some perhaps from the fundamentalist Right. There could be a great gathering in, and a great exodus as well. What is certain is that we must renew the Church not as an open-ended, agnostic body, but as a strongly centred family of Christ, drawing life, strength, vision and fire from a new vision of Christ and the Church in which not one jot, not one tittle of the former perfection and spiritual idealism, has been erased. There is no other ecumenism which is honest, or which makes sense of the Catholic Church.
There is no other way, ecumenical or otherwise, which can permit the Christian Church to survive into the next century in her historic identity, with a truly divine gospel and with authority from God to preach it to all the nations. It is time to say the truth bluntly, even at the cost of a confrontation. It is also time to proclaim a great hope, with a great faith, but it must be the truly divine God we proclaim, the truly divine Christ, the truly divine magisterium of His Church. There is neither hope, nor beauty and joy, except by a return to this the prime principle of Catholicism.