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Document Details : Title: Der Leib Gottes Subtitle: Die Bedeutung des Inkarnationsgedankens für ein nichtdualistisches Gottesbild Author(s): WENDEL, Saskia Journal: ET-Studies Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Date: 2010 Pages: 245-263 DOI: 10.2143/ETS.1.2.2126620 Abstract : Neither the conviction that God is pure spirit nor the pantheistic assumption that the universe is an infinite, singular, divine substance are able to provide a sustainable notion of God. In an attempt to avoid the dualism which follows from the former and the – possibly naturalistic – monism which follows from the latter position, this article aims at illuminating the importance of the Christian idea of incarnation. It will be argued that not only in the singular incarnation of God in Jesus, but also in the continuous incarnation of God in every conscious being, one is able to find a philosophically stable concept which achieves a balance between a transcendent and immaterial as well as a corporeal and incarnated God. In the first instance, anthropological reflections on the uncircumventable, inaccessible self-consciousness of human beings result in an analysis of self-consciousness as a pre-reflective acquaintance with oneself. However, this pre-reflexive consciousness is always corporeally constituted. Therefore, one should, adopting the phenomenological distinction between Körper and Leib, emphasise the importance of the corporeal realisation of self-consciousness. The Leib can be regarded as a precondition of knowledge and a relation to the world. In a second step, these anthropological considerations on the inaccessibility and pre-reflectivity of a corporeally constituted consciousness are related to Meister Eckhart’s concept of the soul as an image of God and his idea of the everlasting incarnation of God into a part of the soul. This innermost background of the soul is an image of Christ and therefore a divine part in every human being. Eckhart thereby avoids pantheism and unites mystical monism with the Christian differentiation between creator and creature. In a modern transformation of Eckhart’s thoughts, i.e. in going beyond his medieval ontology and metaphysics, it is possible to combine his concept of the background of the soul with a modern philosophy of consciousness. This combination culminates in the finding that God is continually incarnated in corporeal, self-conscious beings as an individualised universal being and that, therefore, Christianity is able to dispense with an implausible dualism of substance as well as an impersonal monism. Instead, it is important to reemphasize the corporeality of God found in Christ as its singular most complete form as well as in every self-conscious being. |
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