Speech And Boundary

Transcendence and immanence are two different relationships between God and the created world,maintaining the balance between transcendence and immanence constitutes a core theme throughout the system of Christian philosophy.In other words,the tension between God’s transcendence and immanence has always existed in the Christian philosophical system.Therefore,how to properly describe and speak of that God who is infinitely beyond finite creatures,and at the same time reveals himself to man.This ensures that the finite can finally know and speak God,and that such a speech will not limit the absolute freedom of God’s self-revelation and self-expression.In this way,maintaining a very tense and balanced relationship between the dual truths of God’s transcendence and immanence is an unavoidable and extremely challenging problem for every Christian philosopher.If the tension between these two truths becomes unbalanced,it will not only have a greater impact on the development and construction of the Christian philosophical system,but also make Christian thinkers who are devoted to thinking about this core issue uneasy,and even promote different forms of debate on this issue among different schools within the Christian philosophical system.In this sense,the relationship between God’s transcendence and immanence serves as the core clue to explain the Christian philosophical system.Around the dialectical relationship between these two truths,we can also glimpse the development and evolution of the Christian philosophical system in different periods.The problem is that the ontological line of argumentation of Aquinas’ s metaphysical system is regarded by philosophers who adhere to voluntarism as a hidden danger of devaluing God’s transcendence.As an important turning point in the history of Christian thought,the "1277 Condemnation " has the core position and requirement of proclaiming God’s omnipotence and enhancing God’s transcendence.On this premise,whether Eckhardt’s German mysticism line or Scott and Occam’s voluntarism line,the fundamental goal is to construct a more elaborate philosophical system to facilitate creativity to present the two truths of transcendence and immanence.It can be said that the line of argument of Meister Eckhart,Duns Scotus and Ockham upholds the infinite transcendence of God to a certain extent.But at the same time,their philosophical arguments also brought forth a transcendent God who was infinite,distant,and above human intellect.It can be seen that the system construction of mysticism and voluntarism in scholasticism has fundamentally failed to properly restore a tension balance between these two truths,and even make the relationship between the two more tense.Under this premise,the most urgent problem placed in the front of Cusa is: to calm the endless debate among philosophers with different ideological positions in scholasticism,and to make the transcendence and immanence of God Obtain a new balance in the Christian philosophical system.As far as Cusa’s specific metaphysical system is concerned,Cusa takes the "maximum" theory as the cornerstone of his metaphysical system.And by demonstrating the infinity,perfection,and transcendence of " maximum ",it highlights the absolute priority of God in the ontological level.At the same time,Cusa also emphasized the huge gap between the limited intellectual cognition and the infinite God from the epistemological level by demonstrating the nonproportional relationship between the infinite and the finite.In this way,Cusa’s metaphysical system also responded to the theological propositions and requirements of the church in the late Middle Ages to some extent,maintaining and enhancing the transcendence of God.Cusa’s emphasis on the infinity and transcendence of God,it will deepen the rupture between the infinite and the finite,thus negating the dimension of God’s immanence.In order to make the transcendent God not completely losing the connection with the limited created field.On the one hand,Cusa reconsidered the inner unity of God and all things with the structure of "complicatio-explicatio",and used "contingentia " rather than divine reason and will.On the other hand,in order to break through the limitations of Aquinas’ s theory of analogies,and to avoid falling into the trap of pantheism.Cusa draws a clear boundary between God and the universe with the theory of "contractio",thereby maintaining the transcendental dimension of God relative to the world when he clarifies the immanence dimension of God’s presence in the world.Secondly,although Cusa uses "docta ignorantia" to explained the limitations of the operating mode of human reason,and was fully aware of the incommensurability of the existence of God and the way of human cognition.But this does not mean that Cusa has thus completely regressed to an agnostic position.In order to avoid the disproportionate emphasis on the finite and the infinite,make God a hidden God who is completely above the intellect,and guarantee the possibility of human reason to know and speak of God.With an Augustinian turn of the inner mind,Cusa realized the presence of the infinite mind(God)in the human mind,and revealed the similarity between the infinite mind and the human mind in terms of unity and creativity.Thus,Cusa regards the human mind as the "key" for the finite to know and grasp God.Although Cusa believes that the limited cognition of the human mind cannot get rid of "surmises",such cognition is not a fallacy.On the contrary,the knowledge of the human mind already expresses and manifests the truth about the divine at various levels.Indeed,Cusa’s metaphysical system remains a constant theme in the continuation and reflection of Christian philosophy.However,as a Christian philosopher in a period of fusion and transition,the reference and use of different ideological resources makes Cusa’s metaphysical system very different from Thomism,Scotism,Occamism,and other Christian mystical traditions in scholasticism.It can be said that Cusa’s metaphysical system,based on the integration of different ideological resources in the Middle Ages,with a highly creative and dialectical way to make the tension between God’s transcendence and immanence in the ideological situation of late scholasticism.