Thesis - Antithesis (dietrich Von Hildebrand)

[Nihil Obstat]

So, I typed this entire chapter out, but I do not want it to be buried in a thread many people will never even see, so I will repost it here as well, as its own subject. Respond however.

 

 

 

Trojan Horse in the City of God

Dietrich von Hildebrand

 

Pages 19-25

Thesis - Antithesis

 

When expressing our deep concern over the grave errors widespread among progressive Catholics, we sometimes meet with the response, "Well, this had to come. It is a strong reaction against former errors, abuses, and shortcomings. After a certain time, this reaction will lose its virulence and the right position will be reached."

Such an attitude seems to use very unsatisfactory because it is based on a false conception of the process by which man enlarges his conquest of basic metaphysical and moral truths. And, more serious yet, the consolation this response offers betrays a complete misunderstanding of the unique development in the detailed formulation of divine revelation of the infallible Church.

We shall deal with the former error first.

 

Truth is not a mean between extremes:

 

The erroneous notion that truth is acquired when the pendulum goes from one extreme to another and finally comes to rest in the middle is based on a popular interpretation of the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. But even in its esoteric form (and whatever may be its application to the rhythm of history), this dialectic certainly does not describe the process by which truth is attained. The final synthesis need by no means be any closer to truth than the thesis or antithesis.

Obviously we are not here concerned with the case of a clearly erroneous thesis, the contradictory antithesis of which is necessarily true. For example, the claim that objective truth does not exist is an outright error. Its contradictory antithesis - namely, "There is objective truth" - is true. In this case, a synthesis of thesis and antithesis is out of the question since the two propositions are contradictories. But our subject concerns contraries: propositions that can both be erroneous.

The popular understanding of the Hegelian dialectic is that it is inevitable for the human mind to go to one extreme, then to react toward the opposite extreme, and finally to reach truth which lies midway between the two extremes.

We must distinguish the two propositions that are implied in this idea: first, that history comprises a dialectical movement in which one epoch reacts diametrically against the preceding one with a resultant movement to the center position; second, that this endpoint of the movement of the pendulum, this means between two extremes, constitutes the truth or at least a progress in the discovery of truth. It is with this second proposition that we are primarily concerned.

It assumes, for instance, that when in one epoch authority is overstressed, it will be followed by a strong reaction which emphasizes freedom and tries to do away with authority. After these two extremes of the pendulum, the resultant position will be in the center and justice will therefore be done to both authority and freedom.

Now, the idea of the mean as the happy medium applies to many instances of rational choice. For example, food should be neither too salty nor saltless; the temperature in a room should be neither too hot, nor too cold. When, however, it comes to the exploration of truth, to philosophical controversies, to antithetical approaches to the world, or to opposed world views, the theory of the happy mean does not apply.

 

Extremes are not incomplete truths:

 

In these questions the truth lies above the two extremes, not between them. In every extreme there is a wandering from the truth into error. Although the reciprocal extremes seem to be completely antagonistic, they actually share the same crucial error. The true position differs from both extremes much more than they differ from each other.

For example, in the period of liberal individualism the reality and value of community was to a great extent overlooked. This conception of man was later replaced by an overemphasis on community which reduced the role of the individual to a mere part of a whole and made his value dependent on his contribution to the community. In contrast to the nineteenth century, the mentality of the first half of the twentieth century emphasized community to the detriment of the individual person. The ideals and ideas of collectivism made great progress, especially after World War I, quite apart from the fact that Communism, Fascism, and National Socialism were sustained by brutal force in various parts of Europe.

Now, the point for our purposes is that individualism and collectivism are not two extremes between which lies the truth. In reality, the individual person and the community are so linked that it is impossible to do justice to the real nature of the person or the community whenever one is emphasized at the expense of the other. If we lose sight of their deep interrelationship we necessarily blind ourselves even to the nature and rank of the one that is overstressed. Extremes are not incomplete truths. Contrary to the widespread belief, individualism does not overrate the value and dignity of the individual person, nor does collectivism overrate the community. On the contrary, both actually lose sight of the true essence, value, and dignity of the person and the community.

Far from being a doctrine that at least does justice to the value of the individual man, individualism is rather the result of a denial of the essential features of the human person. In a process that began in the Renaissance, the conception of the person was progressively stripped of its essential features. Numerous truths were denied: first, man's being ordered to God and his destiny of eternal union with Him; then, the immortality of the soul; then, the capacity for an authentic knowledge of reality; then, the substantiality of the soul; then, free will, and so on. The process began with the ambition of making man into a God and ended by making him a more highly developed animal or even a bundle of sensations. It is not surprising that in the course of this drift, man's essential capacity to enter into deep communion with others and to build a community with them was forgotten.

A similar destructive result followed from the reaction to individualism in the idolization of the community. All understanding of the nature of true community was lost and a mere collective (conceived after the pattern of material substances) was substituted for it.

Since individualism and collectivism are not, therefore, merely one-sided emphases on the individual or the community but rather distortions of the very entities they erect into idols, the truth can never be a mean between them, to be reached when the pendulum comes to rest in the middle or when a moderate individualism is combined with a moderate collectivism. The error which is at the basis of both ideologies can be overcome only by rising above the level on which these positions are antagonistic and discovering a truth above them that cannot be regarded as a synthesis of prior thesis and antithesis.

This truth will differ much more from both than they do from each other. If we consider the elaboration of the unique value of the individual person in Augustine's Confessions and the exposition of the glory of communion and community in his City of God, we see that the true view of the individual person and the community is in no way a mean between individualism and collectivism.

This example, to which numerous others could be added, may suffice to show that the above-mentioned theses and antitheses are not incomplete truths, but caricatures and misunderstandings of the nature and value of the entities they would exalt.

 

Overreaction to error does not yield truth:

 

It is therefore a serious mistake to belittle the grave errors which have crept in among many Catholics by interpreting them as natural reactions to former errors and to console oneself with the anticipation that a resolution of action and reaction will eventually reach the truth in the center.

The illusion of the progressive Catholics is yet more simplistic. They believe that the reaction against former errors or shortcomings is itself the attainment of truth.

It is a most absurd form of naiveté to proclaim the currently reigning antithesis to errors of a former epoch as a victory of truth and a sign of remarkable progress. Of men with illusions about their own reactions to former epochs one could say - to vary a remark Talleyrand is said to have maid to the Bourbons - that they have forgotten everything and learned nothing. By looking back at previous centuries they could easily discover that the various antitheses were in no way better than the preceding theses. But this is not done. They usually submit to the illusion that the present antithetical reaction to something in the preceding epoch is a breakthrough to truth.

 

Truth is above the rhythm of history:

 

Our progressives tend to absolutize the views of the present age. We shall discuss below the task of the true philosopher in any age, and especially in our age - namely, to free himself from the rhythm of a more or less automatic reaction and ascend to the truth which is above all antagonisms between present and former epochs. Unfortunately, some philosophers today see the mission of philosophy to be the conceptual formation of the trends and tendencies that are "in the air" in their own age. Thus, they play the present off against the past (and can enjoy thereby feelings of contempt for previous ages), instead of pursuing their true vocation as philosophers by seeking truth above the rhythm of history.

 

The Church's essential nature never changes:

 

But it suggests far greater spiritual and intellectual confusion to attempt to submit to this alternating rhythm the Church in Her supernatural nature as the Mystical Body of Christ, in Her infallible magisterium, and in the stream of grace granted t humanity through the sacraments.

The unfolding of the plenitude of divine revelation over the centuries in a movement from the implicit to the explicit is just the opposite of a rhythm of thesis and antithesis which swings from one extreme to another. It is rather an organic growth under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in which, in the process of preserving one and the same divine revelation from all errors and heresy, the glorious deposit of Catholic faith is given a more and more explicit formulation.

Notwithstanding their differences in personality and historical circumstances, the saints of all centuries manifest the same quality of holiness, the same transformation in Christ. In the diverse personalities of such saints as St. Peter, St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Vincent de Paul, the Curé of Ars, or Don Bosco, we find the same flavor of holiness, the same glorious reflection of the Sacred Humanity of Christ, the same sublimity of a supernatural morality that surpasses any mere natural morality, even the most noble one of Socrates.

 

The Church's human dimension is affected by history:

 

But the Church also has a human, natural aspect. Insofar as it is a human institution composed of frail men, it, too, is exposed to the influence of this alternating rhythm of history. Therefore the Church has the continual mission of rejecting all such influences and representing anew to humanity the untarnished plenitude of divine and authentic Christian life - that is, the real message of Christ to all men.