ON “THE CONTINGENCY OF OUR OWN BEATITUDE.” SOME REFLECTIONS ON GILSON’S “THE FUTURE OF AUGUSTINIAN METAPHYSICS”
Journal Title: Studia Gilsoniana - Year 2015, Vol 4, Issue 1
Abstract
Inspired by selected passages from Wendell Berry’s story “A Place in Time,” the article discusses Étienne Gilson’s essay “The Future of Augus-tinian Metaphysics.” Augustinian metaphysics, according to Gilson, begins with the existential fact that our actual lives are permanently unsettled beings, on the other hand, can know how and why they are ‘capable of truth’. They have minds that know and affirm the truth of things that actu-ally exist. None the less, we still “need to understand the presence in us of an appel by God, who, working in our souls, creates in us a fruitful rest-lessness, moves, stirs our soul, and leaves it no rest until it has finally put itself into His hands.” The “contingency of our own beatitude” is such that we can resist this divine pursuit to the end. Augustine thought, in fact, that most people did resist it to the end. This possibility is what I mean by ‘habits without metaphysics’. We form our own habits by how we live and choose. Our habits can protect us from ever being aware of things for their own sake. All is seen in the light of what end we have chosen for our-selves. We build a false picture of the world, a system, an ideology, in order to justify what we choose in preference to what is and the search of God within our existing immortal souls.
Authors and Affiliations
James V. Schall
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