THE ANALOGY OF INDIVIDUALITY AND "TOGETHERNESS"

Daniel J. Shine, S. J.

Boston College

Newton, Mass.

IN EVERY person's life and in every philosophy of man there is the constant tension between honorable individuality and community. Excessive individuality can destroy one's necessary membership in community. Over preoccupation with community can check one's growth in individuality. Occasionally some persons choose exclusively either individuality or community. It seems that, although the tension will never be fully resolved, one must be both an individual and a member of community. In the paragraphs which follow we wish to bring out this point, namely, that one must be, necessarily, both an individual and a member of community, but particularly we wish to expand the thought that neither individuality nor community is a univocal concept or reality. Rather, in man there are various levels of individuality. Likewise there are various levels of community. We have used the word " togetherness " as a generic term because, as will appear later, community, at least in our future use of the word, will be limited to a particular level of togetherness. We wish, immediately, to acknowledge our indebtedness to Karl Rahner and to Gabriel Marcel for many of the ideas which appear below and, in some instances, for their terminology.

Noumenal Ego - Phenomenal Ego

By these terms " noumenal" and " phenomenal ego " we wish to give a name to two aspects of man which, although they cannot be separated, yet must be distinguished. Man is spirit in matter, or, if you will, spirit in the world. By the " noumenal ego " we mean man as spirit. It is common doctrine with the Scholastics that the human soul is a self-subsistent form. By this they mean, at least the Thomists, that certainly

after death the human soul is capable of existing on its own apart from the body. But also it must be emphasized that the human spirit, even in its conjunction with the body, is self-subsistent. If it is self-subsistent after death, it must be self-subsistent before death. By the term " phenomenal ego " we mean the same human soul which informs matter. Donceel ¹ has brought out this distinction rather felicitously. He points out that the human soul must be considered both as a formal principle and as a substance, as a spirit. The soul is said to be a spirit which acts like a substantial form. The soul as spirit is rightly said, as self-subsistent, to be a complete substance but not a complete nature. This understanding of the soul as a spirit which informs matter is a synthesis of a thesis which derives from Plato and an antithesis which comes from Aristotle. Plato insisted that the human soul was a spiritual being --and this we grant. Aristotle insisted that the human soul was the form of matter--and this, too, we must grant. The synthesis is found in the fact that the human soul is a spirit which informs matter.

It would take us too far afield to give a deeper explanation here of how the unity of man is thus preserved and how, simultaneously, the soul can be spirit which is materialized by its intrinsic dependence upon matter. It is our opinion that a solution of this antimony can be suggested by a recourse to Karl Rahner's theory of quasi-formal causality² and likewise to De la Taille's theory of Act and Actuation.³

Intellect - Understanding

If man is a spirit (noumenal ego) and spirit in matter (phenomenal ego) on the substantial level, it will be necessary that these two aspects of man appear in his levels of activity.

¹ J. F. Donceel, S. J., Philosophical Anthropology (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), pp. 435-436.

² Karl Rahner, S. J. " Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated Grace," Theological Investigations, trans. Cornelius Ernst, O. P. (Baltimore: Helicon Press), I, pp. 319-346; cf. footnote 2, p. 340.

³ Maurice de la Taille, S. J., The Hypostatic Union and Created Actuation by Uncreated Act (West Baden Springs, Ind.: West Baden College, 1952).

We wish here to point out how this will become manifest in the operations of man's intelligence. Before we recall this distinction, we must immediately point out that there is only one intellect, one intelligence, in man. Just as there is only one soul in man which is a spirit which informs matter and thus we truly have two aspects to the one human soul, so likewise in man there is but one intelligence with these two aspects, intellect and understanding. As it is always the total man (the noumenal ego and phenomenal ego) which exists and operates, so, too, whenever man's intelligence operates both aspects must be present, namely, intellect and understanding. Man, in intelligizing, must necessarily and simultaneously know the other, a material reality and himself, be conscious of the other and of himself. In the first aspect of this one operation we have the intentionality of knowledge, identity with opposition, and in the second aspect we have only the pure identity of knowledge, identity without opposition, or simply being-present-to-itself. In the human intellect as understanding there is present the quiddity of material things or the proper formal object of the human mind attained by the abstraction of the intelligible species. In the intellect aspect of the human intelligence, we have being as common formal object of the mind. This is intellectual consciousness. Understanding is the spiritual, cognitive faculty of the substantial form of a material body. Intellect is the spiritual, cognitive faculty of spirit in matter. Understanding has been commonly well-developed by scholastic philosophers. We would wish, therefore, to underline the aspect of intelligence which we have called intellect, namely, that aspect of intelligence whereby the human soul as spirit, as self-subsistent spiritual substance, is capable, by reflection, of returning to its essence, of being present-to-itself-as-subject, of taking possession of itself as being and thus achieving the identity of the real and the intelligible. ⁴

⁴ D. J. Shine, S. J., An Interior Metaphysics: The Philosophical Synthesis of Pierre Scheuer, S. J. (Western, Mass.: Weston College Press, 1966), pp. 78-81 and footnote. Cf. also, footnote of pp. 181-182.

Intellectual Will - Rational Will

Just as there is only one soul in man which is spirit and yet informs matter; just as there is only one intelligence in man which yet has two aspects, intellect and understanding, so too in man there is but one will, but it has two aspects. These we have called intellectual will and rational will. Intellectual will parallels human intelligence as intellect. It is spirit taking possession of itself, necessarily loving itself simultaneously with the other. Rational will parallels the understanding aspect of the intelligence. It is concerned with the will's appetite for the material quiddities which have been presented to it by the understanding. Just as the intelligence in its every act as intellect will necessarily also act as understanding and thus be involved with materiality (the " turning to the phantasms " of the Scholastics), so likewise the intellectual will must operate simultaneously with the rational will which both seeks the material quiddities presented to it by the understanding and " informs" affective movements on the sensitive level. This we have elsewhere called a " turning of the will to the sensitive appetites." ⁵

An Individual - Analogy of Being - Being and the One are Convertible - Analogy of Individuality

What is an individual? An individual would be a natural unit which is undivided in itself and separated from all others. It is in the system of St. Thomas-Capreolus-Karl Rahner-De la Taille an individual substance of a particular nature which has its own commensurate act of existence. Thus we can draw up a schema of the strata of being; beginning from the lowest to the highest there would be inanimate units (perhaps atoms and/or molecules), vegetative beings, animals, men, angels, and God in whom the particular individual substance or essence is identical with his act of existence.

Analogy of being. The principle of analogy or proportionality

⁵ D. J. Shine, S. J., " Spiritual Direction and the Spiritual Exercises," Review for Religious, vol. 25, no. 5 (September 1966), p. 891.

is stated thus. The transcendental perfections and the ontological perfections of being are common to all beings, to each according to its degree. The transcendental perfections would be oneness, trueness, and goodness. Some of the ontological perfections would be life, consciousness, knowledge, love.⁶ We would also include " togetherness."

Being and the one are convertible. The unity of a being is going to be in direct proportion to its being itself. Hence, as its perfection of being increases in the strata of being, its unity and individuality are going to become more perfect. For the present we are concerned with but the transcendental property of the unity of a being. Later we shall briefly make an application to the ontological properties of being and their analogy within the strata of being.

Analogy of individuality. It is apparent that we simply cannot speak now in a univocal way about the individuality of being for, by the principle of proportionality which we have just recalled, the unity of a being is going to be in direct proportion to its being. So the unity of a vegetative being is going to have something in common with, and something different from, the unity of the inanimate unit. The being and unity of a man will be superior to that of an animal, etc. Hence we must say of the analogy of individuality that, as truly as being is analogous in its various manifestations, so there must be an analogy of the at-oneness-with-itself of every being. Shortly we shall see that man is in the unique position of having within himself, even as an individual, a stratified unity of individuality.

We would like to insert here a parenthesis drawn from Karl Rahner.⁷ Within a particular being the degree of its ability for presence to itself through consciousness and self-possession in love is the indication of its degree of being. This would be true of all beings. We are speaking here of analogy. This " being-present-to-itself " is simply a mode of describing the actuality, the intrinsic self-realization of the being. Beings, that is, all

⁶ Scheuer-Shine, op. cit., pp. 53-54.

⁷ Theological Investigations, IV, " The Theology of the Symbol," pp. 229-230.

beings, express themselves because they realize themselves through a plurality in unity. Self-realization as plurality and as possession of self are not disparate elements simply juxtaposed in a being, since possession of self in knowledge and love is not just an element but the content of that which we call being. Briefly, being expresses itself, because it must realize itself through a plurality in unity. We know from Revelation that in God where we have the highest being and hence the greatest degree of at-oneness-with-oneself, we have simultaneously plurality in the supreme being, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is without detriment to the divine unity. Hence plurality, although in the composition of creatures it is really an indication of finiteness, must also be considered as having a positive aspect. If there is plurality in the supreme divine unity, plurality must also be considered as a positive perfection found in the finiteness of a being. We mention this plurality in the unity of a being here because Rahner's emphasis of plurality as a positive perfection strikes us as a valid insight into the metaphysics of being. We know from Revelation that there is a community of persons in the one supreme being. This seems one instance where a Christian philosopher can and should profit from his knowledge of Revelation. Perhaps it could be said that in all of philosophy, particularly in metaphysics and psychology, the Christian philosophers have not adequately worked downward from Revelation to enlighten their own philosophy of being and of man. For example, Christian philosophers might be able to get a deeper understanding of human fatherhood if they studied the data of Revelation about God the Father " from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named." ⁸

The Greater the Individuality, the Greater is the Communicability and Need for Communication

We would like to establish eventually the fact that, as the individuality of a being on the various levels of beings increases,

⁸ Eph. 3: 14-15.

there is in direct proportion a greater possibility of communication and simultaneously a greater need for communication. Hence, as unity is a transcendental property of being, communicability is necessarily an ontological perfection. As background for this statement we wish to establish first the two following propositions: a) the greater the transcendence of form over matter, the greater is the interiority of the activity of the being; b) the greater the interiority of the activity of the being, the greater is its individuality; then we shall come to our primary point, c) the greater the individuality of the being, the greater is the communicability and the need for communication.

a) The greater the transcendence of form over matter, the greater is the interiority of the activity of the being. In the hylomorphic theory the form of the corporeal being is understood to be less dependent on matter the higher its level in the strata of being. Although we will speak in terms of the transcendence of form over matter, the basic outlook applies simply to act and potency as such. In all beings, as we ascend from the lower to the higher, act progressively predominates over potency. This is but to assert in another way the superiority of act over potency. On the level of inanimate being there is almost an equality between the characteristics of form and matter. Qualities which are due to the form, such as taste, color, sound, etc., and activity which springs from form, are almost totally realized in and through matter. So quantity, the source of extension and mensurability in the corporeal being, can be equated with qualities, and the qualities of the being are thus measurable. The passivity of matter is conjoined with spontaneity of form and there is an equality, that is, there is a constancy in the realized balance of spontaneity and passivity in the immaterial body. Hence, there is relatively little interiority of the inanimate being in its activity. Its spontaneity is, as it were, exhausted in its self-realization in matter. However, on the second level of corporeal being, vegetative beings, action now tends to become more immanent. This is said to be due to the transcendence of the form over matter. There is a dependence

of the form upon matter; nevertheless, there is a superiority of activity precisely due to the higher form and also a greater interiority of activity. Hence the three attributes commonly ascribed to vegetative beings, namely, growth, nutrition and reproduction, although exteriorized, yet show greater interiority than is found in the lower level of being. Animals have sensitive knowledge. Their images and memories as such are completely interior. In man there is the highest interiority found in corporeal beings, for man is capable of being present-to-himself in knowledge and love. In the angels there is still greater interiority because they do not, as does man, depend on matter for their knowledge of material realities. Nevertheless, there is a degree of exteriority because, although they truly know themselves as creatures or created knowers, they simultaneously know other things from the " outside " and thus simultaneously know the other and themselves. Finally, in God we have perfection of interiority, for in his knowledge and self love he is dependent on nothing outside of himself.

b) The greater the interiority of the activity of the being, the greater is the individuality of the being. Although stones and inanimate things truly have an individuality, it is not in most instances of particular importance. It makes little difference to a stonemason which of thousands of bricks of a particular type he will next place into that section of the wall. Individuality increases on the level of vegetative being. A rose bush put in favorable circumstances of sun, water, chemical food, is going to be noticeably different, noticeably individualized in comparison with another rose bush of the same species which is planted in an unfavorable milieu. Animals will have yet a greater individuality. Consider the individuality of two dogs of the same litter, of the one who has to find his way in life by searching the garbage pails of back alleys and of the other who is cared for by a dowager. When we come to the level of man we need not stress the individuality, for we shall develop this point at some length later. Yet even here, the individuality of the substantial nature is enhanced much more intensely precisely because of the intellectual and volitional activities

which man realizes throughout his lifetime. Angels possess yet greater individuality because, whereas man has a common nature, each angel is a unique species and hence totally different from any other angel. In God again we reach the perfection of individuality, because God is infinitely unique.

c) The greater the individuality of the being, the greater is the communicability and need for communication. Rahner has stated that " the true law of things is not: the more special and distinct in character, the more separated, isolated and discontinuous from everything else, but the reverse: the more really special a thing is, the more abundance of being it has in itself, the more intimate unity and mutual participation there will be between it and what is other than itself." ⁹ Non-living material beings have the lowest level of communication although they truly communicate. Hence hydrogen and oxygen communicate and water results, but in their communication of self their individuality is destroyed. Communication for them frequently means self-destruction. The contrary is going to be true on the higher levels of being. Precisely through communication the individuality of a being will not be destroyed but necessarily enriched. In plants there is a slight rise in this ability and necessity for communication. Plants, as against inanimate things, need not destroy their own nature in their self communication. They communicate by the propagation of others of the same species. Animals have yet greater communication. They communicate with one another through knowledge, e.g., hens clucking as grain is being tossed to them, horses neighing in a barn when a fire breaks out. In man, obviously, there is yet higher communication. He is capable of language, he communicates through books, art, literature, political life. In angels a higher level of knowledge and will activity necessarily implies greater means for communication and greater need for communication. For the angels in their communication do not have, as does man, the " symbol " of the

⁹ Karl Rahner, " The Significance in Redemptive History of the Individual Member of the Church," The Christian Commitment, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), pp. 77-78.

body which is a necessary means whereby man communicates. Hence the body is for man both a means of self-revelation and at the same time a veil which hinders and frequently blocks his ability to communicate with another person.¹⁰ Through Revelation we know that in God we have the supreme example of communication. By divine necessity the Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Here is the infinite exemplar of interior communication. By and in his freedom God communicates outside himself, and we have creation, conservation, concurrence, the communication of divine goodness through sanctifying grace and the uncreated gift of the Three Persons to intellectual beings. De Finance has attributed this apparent paradox--of greater individuality implying greater communicability--to the act of existence.

It [the act of existence] is a principle of communion, yes, but at the same time a principle of uniqueness. It is the act by which each being affirms itself in its incommunicable singularity, but affirms itself within being, as sharing in being, as linked in its very singularity with all other singulars. . . . And the more each one strives to be itself and to advance towards perfect authenticity, the more also it enters into profound communion with all the others, since it is the same Act which is acting in all and communicating itself to all. It is not, therefore, by some illusory renunciation of being oneself that would bring about the meeting with another, but in a deepening of one's own self. Nevertheless we must distinguish here between simple individuality, which belongs to the order of nature or essence, and ' ipseity ' or selfward, which belongs to the order of act, of existing, while at the same time being conditioned by the former. To cling stubbornly to the former is to imprison one's self in one's poverty. To descend more deeply into the latter is to make one's self ever more open to others.¹¹

Analogy of " Togetherness "

Speaking above of the principle of proportionality or of analogy we have said that we must attribute to being not only

¹⁰ Jean Mourroux, The Meaning of Man, (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1948), pp. 41-78.

¹¹ Joseph de Finance, S. J., " Being and Subjectivity," Cross Currents, vol. 6, no. 2, (1966), p. 174.

the transcendental properties of oneness, trueness and goodness but also ontological perfections. We have given examples of these previously, such as life, consciousness and love. These will be found in all beings, to each according to its degree of being. We state now that, in addition to life, consciousness, knowledge and love, " togetherness " is also an ontological perfection common to all beings. We have chosen this word " togetherness " because it seems to cover the different levels of beings. A " togetherness " of atoms may be called a molecule; a " togetherness " of vegetative beings could be called a grove, a forest; a " togetherness " of animals would be a flock, a fold, a bevy or a clutch. In man, as we shall see at greater length shortly, we may distinguish " togetherness '" of community and of communion, in the State and in the Church. Revelation tells us of choirs of angels and likewise of the interpersonal communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. On the level of human individuals and of angels and of God the notion of " togetherness " has always been accepted, but on the analogy of being it would seem to us that the notion of " togetherness " for subhuman individuals has been underdeveloped in the past. Karl Rahner writes:

The sub-human individual is constituted in the way which needs to be precisely and clearly seen if anything is to be understood of the problem involved in this question: namely, its difference from and its bond with what is other than itself increase and decrease together. This seems at first to be a contradiction. At first sight one is inclined to say that anything that exists possesses its own peculiarity (and difference) in inverse ratio to its unity with, its bond with, what is other than itself; that, in other words, it decreases in selfhood the more it becomes bound up with something else, while any growth in distinguishing selfhood involves a decrease in its unity with and relationship to anything other than itself. It is no exaggeration to say that this error, seemingly such a self-evident truth, the apparent contradiction between all embracing unity and individual uniqueness, lies at the root of all the errors and heresies that have arisen in the study of relationships, of " social being." And yet even at the lowest sub-human level, if we look at it properly, we see that it is not so. Something that is merely separated spatially and temporally from something else is

neither really anything for itself (does not really possess anything for itself) nor really one with anything else.¹²

Teilhard de Chardin brilliantly saw this " togetherness " in all reality and particularly the horizontal " togetherness " of a particular level of being. For, as he saw it, there was a constant convergence in the evolutionary process. After the initial opposition in the dispersion of atoms there was a higher composition in convergence due to a thrust for vertical " togetherness " and a concomitant transformation in this convergence with the result that there was an emergence of a higher level of being. Hence by involution in the evolutionary process a " togetherness " on a particular level of being was realized, and this in turn had an inner thrust for ascent to a higher level of " togetherness." However, the present writer does not think that it is an excessively harsh judgment of de Chardin's work to suggest that he perhaps conceived this " togetherness " in too univocal a sense and did not sufficiently, if not in his own mind at least in his written expression of convergence, emphasize its analogous nature.¹³ Thus some of his critics have accused him of error in finding consciousness in the lower levels of being. I believe that in good part this is due to the fact that de Chardin did not emphasize sufficiently that he was speaking analogously of consciousness. Our observations about consciousness in lower forms of being gives us the opportunity to explain a bit more about the principle of proportionality or of analogy as we have applied it to " togetherness." For example, the present author would be willing to speak analogously of consciousness in atoms, molecules and plants. Allow me to quote at some length the words of Scheuer:

The principle of proportionality seems, at first sight, paradoxical and opposed to common sense. Does it not entail pan-psychism? Shall we say that a mineral possesses life, intelligence, etc.? We must first remark that words should keep the meaning that they

¹² Karl Rahner, " The Significance in Redemptive History of the Individual Member of the Church," op. cit., pp. 77-78.

¹³ C. Armagnac, " Philosophie de la nature et méthode chez le Pierre Teilhard de Chardin," Archives de Philosophie, 20 (1957), pp. 5-41.

have in everyday usage. We shall not say that a mineral possesses life, because life means the perfection of immanence at least in that, degree which is found only from plants upward. Likewise the use of the word knowledge starts only with the animal, and that of the term intellect only with the human soul, etc. We only say that, since all beings are only being, and since being is common to all of them, there is in none of them an ontological perfection which is totally heterogeneous to the other beings. Aside from all terminological discussions, we must affirm that there is in the atom something which is to the intellect what the being of the atom is to the being of a spirit. This formula is above reproach and contains nothing paradoxical. God is only life, spirit, intellect and love, yet He sees in Himself, as a very imperfect participation of Himself, the being of an atom. Would that be possible if the atom were heterogeneous, entirely alterius rationis [of another sort] than life, intellect and love? The principle of analogy destroys the basis of agnosticism and provides us with the only means of escaping it. It opens the way to that real intelligence of beings which understands the lower ones by means of the higher. The most material determinations are, in their intimate core, nothing but participations of thought and love.¹⁴

It should be apparent now why we have spoken of the analogy of " togetherness " rather than of community or communion, for we would run the risk of being misunderstood if we spoke of the community of atoms, molecules, flowers or animals. ". . . words should keep the meaning that they have in everyday usage." But we do affirm with Scheuer that there must be something in the atom, molecule, flower and animal world which is analogous to the community and communion of beings that is found in the being, man, and in the supreme being, God.

Man - Stratified Unity of Individuality and " Togetherness"

Man is a microcosm which mirrors the macrocosm. In man there is found something proper to the nature of the angel, something proper to the nature of animal, plant and mineral. But man is not an angel, nor is he a plant or mere matter. He

¹⁴ Pierre Scheuer, op. cit., p. 52.

is none of these, yet he is all of these. In the foregoing sections we have attempted to point out that there is an analogy of individuality on the various strata of being all the way from the atom to God. Likewise, too, there is found an analogy of " togetherness." In this present section we will endeavor to show that even within man there are various levels of individuality and of " togetherness."

A. Analogy of individuality in a man. In the individual man there must be considered four levels of individuality. He is a biological unit, a rational person, an intellectual person, and he can be a pneumatic person. We shall immediately consider each of these.

a. Biological unit. For years scientists have been aware of the total individuality of a person's fingerprints. The evidence seems to increase day by day to show that not only is this biological individuality of the configuration of fingerprints present in man as manifestative of his uniqueness but that throughout his whole body there is an individuality which marks him apart from all others. Already this uniqueness of
man as a biological unit has been discovered in the composition of his blood cells and saliva. It does not seem unlikely, in time, that an absolute uniqueness will be found in every single cell of man. Yet, granted this uniqueness, there is at the same time a remarkable degree of lack of individuality in man at this level. The surgeon's operating table brings out this fact: this is the standard, universal way to set a broken collarbone, to remove an appendix.

b. Rational person. Earlier we have distinguished the human intelligence as intellect and understanding. We noted that by the word " understanding" the human intelligence was meant insofar as it has a spiritual knowledge of material reality or, in other words, insofar as it has the quiddities of material things for its proper formal object. Likewise too, we distinguished rational will from intellectual will. Rational will was
the human will insofar as it sought the material realities presented to it by the understanding and insofar as it also necessarily

had a " turning to the sense appetites." It is the human soul insofar as it is a spirit which informs matter. It is quite clear that our two aspects of individuality thus far presented cannot be separated. Our so-called phenomenal ego, therefore, necessarily includes both the rational person and man as a biological unit.

In this aspect of man's individuality he can and must be considered as a member of the human species, that is, he is an individual example of the universal which has been identified as " man." Our understanding of the phenomenal ego seems to be the same as Maritain's explanation of the human individual as opposed to the human person.

Man, insofar as he is material individuality, has but a precarious unity, which wishes only to slip back into multiplicity; for matter as such tends to decompose itself. Insofar as we are individuals, each of us is a fragment of a species, a part of this universe, a single dot in the immense network of forces and influences, cosmic, ethnic, historic, whose laws we obey. We are subject to the determinism of the physical world. But each man is also a person and, insofar as he is a person, he is not subject to the stars and atoms; for he subsists entirely with the very subsistence of his spiritual soul, and the latter is in him a principle of creative unity, of independence and of freedom.¹⁵

c. Intellectual person. Previously we explained the human intelligence as intellect with being as its common formal object. We have pointed out, too, the parallel aspect of the human will to which we gave the name intellectual will. These are the aspects of intelligence and will as they are in man insofar as he is a spirit. The intellectual person is identical with what we have previously called a noumenal ego. On the human person, Maritain remarks:

The notion of personality does not refer to matter, as does the notion of individuality apply to corporeal things. It refers to the highest and deepest dimensions of being; personality is rooted in the spirit, in so far as the latter stands by itself in existence and

¹⁵ Jacques Maritain, " The Human Person and Society," Challenges and Renewals, Selected readings, edited by J. W. Evans and W. R. Ward. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), p. 287.

super-abounds in it. Metaphysically considered, personality, being in one's substance a signature or a seal enabling one freely to perfect and freely to give this substance, evidences in each of us that expansiveness of being which, in a corporeal-spiritual being, is linked to the spirit, and which constitutes, in the secret depths of our ontological structure, a source of dynamic unity and inner unification.¹⁶

Maritain has a comment about individuality and personality which we repeat here and apply to our own explanations of phenomenal ego and noumenal ego.

Such are, if I have succeeded in describing them correctly, the two metaphysical aspects of a human being: individuality and personality, each with its own ontological physiognomy. Let us note that we do not represent two separate things. There is not in me one reality called my individuality and another called my personality. It is the same entire being which, in one sense, is an individual and, in another sense, a person. I am wholly an individual, by reason of what I receive from matter, and I am wholly a person, by reason of what I receive from spirit. . . ,¹⁷

Man as noumenal ego is not one example of the universal called " man." As noumenal ego man is absolutely unique. We have risen to a yet higher level of individuality. Just as in the Thomistic synthesis Gabriel is a unique angelic species and totally exhausts the extension of that species--there cannot be another Gabriel--so, in an analogous manner, the individual human soul as spirit exhausts the extension of this type of noumenal ego.

Karl Rahner has written well of this aspect of the human soul as spirit which we have called noumenal ego.

Now we must, however (even for ontological reasons), hold fast absolutely to the fact--even if this is not obvious to everyone at first sight--that something which is merely a case and a circumscription of something universal, something which as an individual and concrete something is just sheer negation, also cannot have-- as something individual--any real, eternally valid significance. Man with his mental and moral acts, therefore, cannot be merely

¹⁶ Op, cit., p. 289.

¹⁷ Op. cit., p. 290.

the appearance of the universal and of what is--in this universality alone--" eternal " and ever-valid in the negative expansion of space and time. In him, the individual, there must rather be a given, a positive reality; expressed differently: his spiritual individuality cannot be (at least not in his acts) merely the circumscription of an in itself universal nature through the negativity of the materia prima, understood as the mere repetition of the same thing at different points in space-time. We must realize that a contrary view would be profoundly unchristian, and that anyone who does not see this, really has no right to protest against a medieval Averroism or against a modern Idealism. The assertion of something positively individual, at least in man's spiritual personal acts, does not moreover need to appear unscholastic, indeed not even really unthomistic. Of course, anyone who cannot rise to the metaphysical thought that (in good scholastic language) God cannot even de potentia absoluta create a second Gabriel--in other words, anyone who cannot rise at all to the notion of something individual which is not the instance of some universal idea, of something repeatable--cannot follow our thought here from the very start. Anyone, however, who can grasp this thomistic thought of something real which cannot be subsumed unequivocally under a universal idea or under a law, cannot reject the idea from the very start that something like this is conceivable--indeed, must be postulated--also in man as a spiritual person, as the existent who does not resolve himself completely into forma-materiae-esse. . . . At least in his actions, man is really also (not only) individuum ineffabile, whom God has called by his name, a name which is and can only be unique, so that it really is worthwhile for this unique being as such to exist for all eternity.¹⁸

d. Grace-given supernatural individuality. The highest level of individuality is found in the supernatural order when sanctifying grace is given indeed to the whole man, but basically and formally to man as spirit, as noumenal ego. Karl Rahner notes:

Furthermore, man is the son of God. That is, if we may bring theology into this examination of the analogy of individuality, God his creator values him so highly as a unique individual, that he has given him the power to enter the community of the most perfect individuality; by grace he can become the beloved child

¹⁸ Karl Rahner, " On the Question of a Formal Existential Ethics," Theological Investigations, II, pp. 225-227.

of the Father together with his only-begotten Son, and with the Son call the Father his Father; and with the Holy Ghost he can lovingly embrace both Father and Son, and thus receive an individuality in grace and glory which is a supernatural sharing in the individuality of the Trinity. In other words, individuality (the unum of scholasticism) is a transcendental concept, and goes together with the concept of " existing being " and, like this concept, has analogical meanings. If, then, an existing being's measure of individuality is determined by its analogical degree of being, the degree of being of a man in grace and glory can only be determined by uncreated grace, that is, by the communication to him, by grace but really, of God himself in his own reality; and so this is man's highest and finally determining individuality, and it is itself determined from within by the individuality of the three divine persons in the Trinity.¹⁹

As a conclusion to the treatment of the analogy of individuality we must again assert that man is a unity. Necessarily one must, in order to discuss these levels at all, speak almost as if these were independent realities in man, and then one must strain to get man back together again as a unity. Finally, we note that there is a definite ordination of the lower level to the higher. The biological individuality is ordered to the rational person, and the totality which is the phenomenal ego is ordained to the noumenal ego. The noumenal ego in turn, granted the supernatural order, finds its true finality as a grace-given, supernatural individual.

B. Analogy of " togetherness " in a man.

a. Analogy of natural " togetherness."

Civil community. Civil community is composed of many phenomenal egos. At the risk of tiring by repetition we say

¹⁹ Karl Rahner, " The Individual in the Church," Nature and Grace. (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964), pp. 15-16. Cf. Rahner also in The Christian Commitment, p. 83: " For if the concept of individuality is an analogical concept, a transcendental characteristic of an existent thing, itself varying according to the level of that thing's being, then it follows that individuality as such will attain a higher degree and more radical intensity if the thing to which it belongs is raised to a higher ontological order. But this is what happens when man, while keeping his spiritual nature as such, by which he is and remains ' man,' is raised to the supernatural order."

that this would be men insofar as they are spirit in matter whose intelligence operates on the plane of understanding and whose will acts as rational will. Civil community is made up of men insofar as they are members of the species " man." On this level, it seems to us, there is a close to ideal parallel between our mode of expression about civil community and what Gabriel Marcel has to say about community and communication.²⁰ We would encourage the interested reader to recall the richness of Marcel's thought on these two notions.

Communion. Communion is found among spirits in matter. It involves " togetherness " in which others as " thous," as non-objectifiable presences or as subjects, meet one another. It is the encounter of noumenal egos. It is the meeting of persons on the level of intellect and intellectual will as we previously defined these terms. Need we state here that this presence can only come about through the materiality of man? Although man is spirit, he is spirit in matter. He cannot become present even to himself as spirit except through matter. Necessarily, too, although there is really a meeting on the level of spirit between an " I " and " thous," this can only come about through matter, through man's corporeity. It is necessarily through their bodies as quasi-objects that subjects can become present to themselves and to " thous." Teilhard de Chardin seems to us correct when he claims that we are still in an evolutionary process whereby in the noosphere we are advancing to higher levels of consciousness. Just as the rational person as individual was oriented to the intellectual person, in a parallel fashion civil community has a further ordination to communion. It is quite clear, since man is spirit in matter, that we will always need civil communities, despite their further orientation to the level of communion. Or again, with Marcel, we can never get along without the " functional " man, but this is not the highest level of the human person.

b. Analogy of supernatural " togetherness." Earlier in our

²⁰ Kenneth T. Gallagher, The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (New York: Fordham University Press, 1962), pp. 22 et seq.

article we acknowledged our indebtedness to Karl Rahner for much of our thought. In this section we acknowledge our total indebtedness to him.²¹ It is hoped that at least one advantage of our previous presentation will have been to spread out many of the ideas of Rahner which are, perhaps, too succinctly presented by him or which, perhaps, are not too clear to a person not familiar with Rahner's metaphysics of knowledge and of man. We wish to deal now with the Church as pneumatic society or community and the Church as pneumatic " cell." It is apparent that we have now left the natural level of man and are concerned with men meeting socially as members of a divinely founded and divinely sustained social reality.

The Church as 'pneumatic society. Here on the supernatural level we have the Church as the equivalent of civil community. It is the Church on the level of phenomenal egos, the Church as an organization, as a true society with all the powers, liberties, and restrictions proper to such a pneumatic society.

The Church as pneumatic " cell." This is the Church on the level of noumenal egos. Its equivalent on the natural level is communion as presented above. Just as true communion is impossible without civil community at the lower level (community is truly oriented to civil communion), so in a parallel way the Church does and must exist as an organized society, but its higher ordination is to pneumatic social communion. Rahner has given the name " Christian cell" to such a grouping of pneumatic individuals On the level of spirits in matter.²²

Conclusion

In the foregoing essay we have been almost exclusively concerned with principles and not with applications. For the interested reader who would wish to pursue further and see some of the consequences which flow from such a point of view, we can but refer him to the references given above to Maritain and Rahner. Throughout the writings of Gabriel Marcel there is likewise, for example, abundant amplification of the differences

²¹ The Christian Commitment, pp. 75 et seq., Nature and Grace, pp. 9 et seq.

²² The Christian Commitment, pp. 112-113.

between " communication " on the level of community as opposed to the level of " communion." We suggest that we have perhaps given a more or less traditional scholastic framework which would help to integrate Marcel's valuable insights. Our effort, we hope, may give some further " systemization " to Marcel's ideas by working them into the Scholastics' metaphysics of man.

Finally, we can only encourage the interested reader to follow the applications which in particular Rahner himself makes, e. g.: " On the Question of a Formal Existential Ethics," ²³ wherein Rahner argues for a unique moral imperative for the person as spirit which is above but not contrary to the individual as a member of the human species and thus subject to universal law. His book, The Dynamic Element in the Church,²⁴ claims that there are individual moral prescriptive norms which are totally unique. In this same book he spells out different modalities of charisms within the Church, received by " pneumatic " individuals as such, by the Church as " pneumatic" society or community and the Christian " cells " within the Church. Thirdly, he analyzes the unique moral imperative which is to be discovered in the pneumatic individual's life as he makes the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Throughout his writings the consequences of one of his fundamental views of the individual are constantly apparent. We would particularly underline in Rahner's view of the individual the aspects of intelligence which we have called: intellect and understanding. This is the source of so many of his profound observations consequent on the notions of unthematic and thematic knowledge. One instance of this is his " Dogmatic Reflections on the Knowledge and Self-Consciousness of Christ." ²⁵

It is the present writer's opinion, perhaps not too humbly expressed, that in the above presentation of the analogy of individuality and " togetherness " we have a matrix pregnant

²³ Op. cit., footnote 18.

²⁴ New York: Herder and Herder, 1964.

²⁵ Theological Investigations, V, pp. 193-215.

with vast potentialities for developing truths about the individual alone and as a social being, both in the natural and supernatural order. Likewise too, it can serve to correct errors or apparent tensions or contradictions which may exist between man as an individual and man as a social being on the various strata of man's being. We have previously quoted Rahner ²⁶ to the effect that individuality and sociability increase and decrease together. The opposite view, he claimed, " lies at the root of all the errors and heresies that have arisen in the study of relationships, of ' social being.' " Hence an understanding of the analogy of individuality and " togetherness " is not only a source of truth but a corrective of error.

Note. After this article was submitted for publication, the author devised phrases which perhaps would have made for simplicity and unity in terminology. The new terms would be the following. Those actually used in the article are in parentheses. Transcendental person (noumenal Ego), categorical person (phenomenal Ego); transcendental intelligence (intellect) , categorical intelligence (understanding); transcendental will (intellectual will), categorical will (rational will); transcendental person (intellectual person), categorical person (rational person); pneumatic transcendental and categorical person (pneumatic intellectual and rational person); transcendental community (communion), categorical community (civil community); pneumatic transcendental community (pneumatic " cell "), pneumatic categorical community (pneumatic society).

²⁶ Cf. text given for footnote 12.