Facs
Transcript
is presupposed, then the relation of philosophical truth and the truth of faith can be determined. Then philosophical truth is truth about the structure of being – which of course includes the structure of knowing, which is a special part of being; or the structure of history, the structure of all categories, of existence, the essential, and what not. All this is included. But in any case we can sum it all up when we say “The structure of being.”
The truth of being is truth about our ultimate concern. So we now have two preliminary answers: philosophical truth is truth about the structure of being; religious truth is truth about our ultimate concern.
Up to this point, the relation seems to be very similar to that between the truth of faith and scientific truth. But there is a difference. There is a point of identity between the truth of faith and philosophical truth which is only indirectly in the scientific realm. There are two ultimates here. The philosophical question asks the question of ultimate reality and its structure, which is in every special reality; and religion asks the question of what concerns us ultimately, which certainly also must be ultimately real, otherwise it wouldn’t concern us, ultimately. Only ultimate reality can concern us ultimately. The transitory things cannot concern us ultimately.
So we are here in the problem of two ultimates: the philosophical and the theological. In both cases something ultimate is involved: ... in religion we want symbolic truth about ultimate reality, because it is a matter of ultimate concern; in philosophy we want conceptual truth about the manifestation of ultimate reality.