Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
When a Western European landed his plane among African natives who gazed unbelievingly at this enormous bird, he proudly remarked, “In one day I have covered a distance which used to take me thirty”. Thereupon the wise black chieftain came forward and aSked, “Sir, what do you do with the other twenty-nine?”
Here we have the twofold possibility of man’s fundamental decision: on the one hand technological rationality, and on the other the question of the meaning of human action.
The question also of the relationship between human hopes and expectations by self-liberation, and the God-given salvation: the question of God as connected with the context of mankind’s striving for liberation. The question of God-talk is intrinsically connected with the question of human integrity and wholeness in such a way that this question of identity cannot be solved in purely theoretical terms: it includes the question of a particular life-style — contemplative and political as well. Talk about God stands under the quest of our way of life; it is governed by the question of our real concerns in life.
1 Theology is ‘principaliter de Dec’ but also it concerns everything ‘secundum quod referentur ad Deum’ (I, q. 1 a. 3 ad 1). The isotopy of the ‘unitas scientiae’ is not destroyed by this. See also I. q. 1 a.7: ‘secundum ordinem ad Deum’. The identity of the pertinency, of the objectum formale quo.