GUNTHER
85
GUNTHER
The starting-point of Gunther's speculation is his
theory of knowledge. Man is endowed with a twofold
faculty of thought, the one a logical or conceptual
function, which deals with appearances, and the other
ontological, ideal, self-conscious, which penetrates
through appearances to being; hence it is inferred that
there are in man two essentially different thinking
subjects. This "dualism of thought" establishes the
dualism of spirit (Oeist) and nature in man, who thus
exhibits their synthesis. The subject of the concep-
tual function is the "mind" (Seek), which belongs
to the nature-principle (Xaturprincip) . From the
"mind" must be distinguished the "soul" (Gclst),
which differs from the former essentially as the sub-
ject of ideal thought. The first result of this ideal
thought-process is self-consciousness, the knowledge
which man acquires of himself as a real being. The
immediate object of inner perception is the conditions
or states of the Ego, which make their appearance as
the expressions of the two primary functions, "recep-
tivity " and "spontaneity ", when these are called into
activity by influences from without. Inasmuch as
the soul refers the manifestations of these two forces
to the one principle and contradistinguishes itself as a
real being from whatever appears before it, it arrives
at the idea of the Ego. By this speculative process,
which Giinther calls a "metalogical " or ideal (idecll)
inference, as distinct from a logical or conceptual
conclusion, the idea of its own being becomes for the
soul the most certain of all truths (the Cartesian
cogilo ergo sum). Then from the certainty of its
own existence the tliinking soul arri\-es at the knowl-
edge of an existence outside itself, since it is con-
fronted by phenomena which it cannot refer to itself
as cause, and for which, in line with the ontological
inference, it must assign a cause in some real being
external to itself.
Thus regarding man as a compound of two qualita- tively different principles, spirit and nature, he arrives at the knowledge of the real existence of nature. The fact of self-consciousness leads him also to the knowl- edge of God; and Giinther Ijelieves that the following proof of the existence of God is the only one that is possible and conclusive: when the soul, once self- conscious, has become certain of the reality of its own existence, it immediately recognizes that existence as afflicted with the negative characteristics of depend- ency and limitedness; it is therefore compelled to postulate another being as its own condition precedent or its own creator, which being it must recognize, in contradistinction to itself and its own inherent nega- tive characteristics, as absolute and infinite. Where- fore this being cannot be the Absolute Being of Pantheism, which only arrives at a realization of itself with the development of the universe; it must be One Who dominates that universe antl, differing substan- tially from it, is the personal Creator thereof. This is the point at which Gunther's speculative theology takes up the thread. Proceeding along purely philo- sophical lines, and prescinding entirely from historical Divine Revelation, the absolute necessity of which Gimther contests, it seeks to make evident the funda- mental tenets of positive Christianity by the mere light of reason. Thus, to begin with, the threefold personality of God is, according to him, the conse- quence of that process which must be supposed to take place in God as well as in the created soul, whereby the differentiation or transition is made from indeterminateness to determinateness, with the differ- ence that this process in God must be thought of as consummated from all eternity. God, according to this theory, first sets up for His own contemplation a complete substantial emanation (Wesensemanntion) of His own Being (Thesis and Antithesis: Father and Son); a further total suKstantial emanation, which issues from both simultaneously, constitutes the third personal Subject (the Holy Ghost), or the Synthesis,
in which the opposition of thesis and antithesis disap-
pears and their perfect parity is made manifest.
On liis views concerning the Trinity, GUnther builds up his theory of the Creation. Inseparably united with the self-consciousness of God in the three Divine Persons is His idea of the Non-Ego, that is, the idea of the Universe. This idea, in formal analogy to the threefold Divine Being and Life, has likewise a three- fold scheme of Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis. God's love for this world-idea is His motive for realiz- ing it as His own counterpart (Contraposition), and as necessarily entailing all three of its factors, two of which (spirit and nature) are in antithesis to each other, while the third (man) exists as the synthesis of both. This worid-reality, which God, by the mere act of His will, has through creation called from nothingness into being, does indeed exist as really as God Himself; its reality, however, is not drawn from the essence of Goil, but endures as a thing essentially different from Him, since it is indeed the realizeil itlea of non-Divine Being and Life (Dualism of God and Universe). Thus the two antithetical factors of spirit and nature in the created world differ substan- tially from each other and stand in mutual opposition. The antithetical relation of spirit and nature shows itself in this, that the realm of the purely spiritual is formed of a plurality of substances, of unitary and integral real principles, each of which must ever retain its unity and its integrity; while nature, which was created a single substance, a single real princijjle, has in its process of differentiation lost its unity for ever, and has brought forth, and still brings forth, a multiplicity of forms or individuals. For this very reason nature, in her organic individual manifesta- tions, each of which is only a fragment of the uni- versal nature-substance, can only attain to thought without self-consciousness. Self-conscious thought, on the other hand, is peculiar to the spirit, since self- consciousness, the thought of the Ego, presupposes the substantial unity and integrity of a free personal- ity. The synthesis of spirit and nature is man. From man's character as a generic being, the result of his participation in the life of nature, CUuither deduces the rational basis of the dogmas of the Incarnation and Redemption. And, as this explains why the guilt of the fir.st parent extends to the entire race, .so also does it show how God could with perfect consist- ency bring aliout the redemption of the race which had fallen in Adam through the God-Man's union with that race as its second Head, Who.se free compliance with the Divine will laid the basis of the fund of hered- itary merit which serves to cancel the inherited guilt.
GCinther was a faithful Catholic and a devout priest. His philosophical labours were at any rate a sincere and honest endeavour to promote the triumph of posi- tive Christianity over those systems of philosophy which were inimical to it. But it is questionable whether he pursued the right course in disregarding the fruitful labours of Scholastic theology and philosophy — of which, like all who scorn them, he had but .scanty knowledge — and permitting his thought, particularly in his natural philosophy, and his speculative method to be unduly influenced by tho.se very systems (of Hegel and Schelling) which he combated. The fact is that the desired result was in no wise attained. The schools of philosophy which he thought he could com- pel, by turning their own weapons against them, to recognize the truth of Christianity, took practically no notice of his ardent contentions, while the Church not only was unable to accept his system as the true Christian philosophy and to supplant with it the Scholastic system, but was finally obliged to reject it as unsound.
Among Catholic scholars Gimther's speculative system occasioned a far-reaching movement. Though he never held a position as professor, he gathered about him through his writings a school of enthusias-
