INTRODUCTION
The
shake-up of modern civilization as a call to reconsider the foundations of the
real, thus can be summarized the general theme of the texts of conferences and
articles collected in this volume and published for the most part over the
years in different Journals. The same theme is approached systematically in
Volume III of the Dogmatic for Evangelical Catholicity[1]; this
volume is dedicated to Theological Cosmology[2]. The
present collection of texts – structured according to the main aspects of the
thematic mentioned (see the table of contents) –, if it is the systematic
development of theological Cosmology and if it is, in turn, illuminated by
them, has its reason for to be and its meaning in itself. It does not include
the strictly anthropological aspect. This one is the subject of a volume apart.
With regard
to modern civilization, we speak indifferently of shaking and crisis. If the
term "shaking" reflects effective reality, if it seems more
appropriate at first sight than that of crisis, which term could give to
understand that it is in this shaking of something of simply temporary and thus
without ultimate significance, the term crisis is transparent, because of its
primary meaning (krisis, in Greek, means judgment calling for a decision), to
the fact that this disturbance is the very consequence of this civilization: in
it is played out what is called an "immanent judgment", as it is
always referred to again in the following pages. Thus the two words
"shake" and "crisis" illuminate one another, and each receives
a surplus of meaning from the other. In their use in the present work, they
are, each time, rich in each other.
The shaking
up of modern civilization is a crisis of the foundations of this latter: it is
the object of Part II. Its main aspects are the ecological crisis (of which the
climate crisis is an implication) and the economic crisis (with the financial
crisis as its implication): they are the subject of parts III and IV.
The title
to this volume calls for the following three explanatory remarks.
- The theme
of the crisis of the foundations of modern civilization concerns the University
of Science, or even puts it - in its modern conception - into question (Part
I). What is at stake is the effervescence of the science tied to the deficiency
of thought. It is certainly not the sciences themselves that are in question,
since they have their object in this aspect of the real: we owe them an incredible
enlargement and to many useful titles of our knowledge and the technical
possibilities implied in they; but it is the absence, or insufficiency, of
their reflexive and critical recovery for their insertion (or integration) into
the whole of the real, which is the "place" - the house - of the life
of humans.
- The theme
of the crisis of the foundations of modern civilization is related to the
preservation of nature - when this one is not reduced to what the approach to
authenticity in its various forms can say but when it is the object of
reflective and critical thinking, we will characterize the nature as creation
-; it is she who is at stake (part V). It is the nature as creation which is
the whole of reality, the house of humans. It is fundamentally to become -
there is no opposition between creation and evolution, but the evolution says the
becoming of creation -, and in this becoming it is entrusted on our land to the
culture of humans and therefore to their responsibility. : Human being
responsible towards the nature as creation, and therefore ultimately
responsible also towards the author of the nature who carries and directs him,
whether he is called the Creator or another name.
- The theme
of the crisis of the foundations of modern civilization is a call to theology.
This is largely absent in the University of Science, where it is largely
reduced to science alongside other sciences, by which it is sterilized as a
reflexive and critical discipline, attentive to the latest issues of science and
the real. Theology carries this responsibility - of reflexive and critical
discipline - with philosophy when the latter on its side does not stray from
its own object which is the same as that of theology. The only difference
between the two is that philosophy approaches the object indicated with the
resources of reason as theology approaches it, in the responsible and
discerning attention to philosophy, correlating with the approach -
experiential - of the reason, the approach - interpretative -, and in this
respect, experiential at second degree – of the faith, attentive to the data of
the revelation carried by the given religious tradition. The deficiency of
thought in the University of Science, of which it was at stake, is, in addition
to that of philosophy, that of theology. The remedy for this deficiency is not
the return to the medieval university in which theology was, after philosophy,
the queen of sciences. It is due to the awareness, by the sciences, of the last
issues involved in the real and in them as sciences of the real, and,
consequently, to their openness to reflective and critical questioning. In this
questioning, philosophy and theology may prove to be the servants of the sciences,
as long as they do not perceive themselves as instances of power placed on the
sciences but will be the obstetrician of the "meta-physical"
questioning resulting from the sciences as real sciences ("physical"
in the given sense of real). Their credibility will assert itself or will be
invalidated in their ability or inability to advance the path of science in the
sense of their constructive effectiveness of the real and thus of the house of
the humans.
Overlaps
The
grouping in this volume of lectures and articles either unpublished or
published in different Journals reveals some overlaps between them; also appear
such overlaps with Writings I and II. They are due to the fact that the
problems touched, connected, and enlighten each other; they are also the
expression of the coherence between them. The reader, reading all the
contributions of each of the volumes, will acknowledge, because of the original purpose of each specific time of each text, to understand
the reason for it.
Thanks
They are
here again in different journals, periodicals, etc., for their permission to
publish the articles concerned. As for the preparation of this volume, I owe
again a great gratitude to Mrs. Lise d'Amboise who was, both for the editing,
the typographic harmonization of the articles reproduced, the revision, and for
her empathically critical and attentive reading of all, and also for all the
technical follow-up, a precious and effective help. He is also credited with
having introduced inclusive language in this volume, a language that many
articles did not mention in their first publication. Recognition also goes to
pastor Theo Trautmann for the translation of a text initially par in German.
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