ORIGINAL, TRANSCENDENTAL AND HISTORICAL COMMUNICATION OF THE MESSAGE

By Fr. Dr. Charles Ndhlovu

Fr. Charles Ndhlovu, PhD, studied and graduated with a Doctorate in Social Communication specializing in Communication Theology at the Pontifical University of Salesianum in Rome – Italy. Some of his publications can be found on his website: charlesndhlovu.wordpress.com; he is also on Youtube (Fr. Charles Ndhlovu – Mkhalirachiuta). He is the founder and proprietor of Emmaus. This paper basically examines the reality of the original, transcendental and historical communication of the message and the human person as the hearer of the message.

The human person is a hearer of the message and as we do know, the message is an important element of communication. The question probably is this; “what kind of a hearer does Christianity anticipate so that its real and ultimate message can even be heard? This is the first question to ask. It is meant not in a moral sense, but in the sense of existential ontology.”^[1] The presupposition is that the Christian message summons the Christian as a hearer of the message to face the real-truth concerning one’s being and the human person cannot escape this truth but needs to encounter this incomprehensible mystery of God through the selfcommunication of God. This means that the truth about the being of the human person leads and summons the person to progressively encounter the infinitive expanse of the mystery of God.^[2] The essential being of the person is constituted in a historical way to some extent but this essential nature can also be accessed through the content of theology that has been revealed to Christianity to help the person to understand his or her beingness which is historically and theologically oriented and is therefore inescapable.^[3]

“A revealed truth remains what it is, remains precisely ‘true’, i.e. it corresponds to reality and is always binding. What the Church has once taken possession of as a portion of the Revelation which has fallen to her share, as the object of her unconditional faith, is from then on her permanently valid possession.”^[4] That aside, it is also true that the historical orientation helps one to philosophize about the person that we know. As such, philosophy must reflect on its historical origins and then find out if it is still bound to these “origins in history and in grace as something valid, and whether this self-experience of man can still be experienced today as something valid and binding. Conversely, dogmatic theology wants to tell man what he is, and what he still remains even if he rejects this message of Christianity in disbelief.”^[5] The person, as a hearer of the message must listen to these truths and reflect on them. It is truth that guides their existence and their lives. It is a truth that defines their being and orients them towards real truth and towards real happiness and joy.

In this sense, we can see that theology has elements of philosophical anthropology and this connection between the two disciplines is important for understanding the message of grace in a philosophical, reasonable, and humanly responsible manner.

In theology, we look at the person and their situation and we also look at how the human person encounters the message, and the presupposition and point of contact between the message and the person. Theology helps the person to ask themselves if they can recognise themselves and whether the person can recognise themselves “as that person who is here trying to express his self-understanding, or whether in responsibility to himself and to his existence he can affirm as the conviction which is to be the truth for him that he is not such a person as Christianity tells him he is.”^[6]

In fact, some theologians have gone as far as saying “all theology is […] anthropology. […] Human persons, in their everyday experience of knowledge, freedom, and historicity are implicitly aware of themselves as spirit, transcendent of the world of immediate experience.”^[7]The person as the hearer of the message is a subject. This notion of the person and subject is so important for revelation and can help in the self-understanding of Christianity. If we accept that man or woman is a person then we can go on to make several other assertions like the personal relationship between God and humans, dialogue between God and the human person in the history of salvation and the fact that the person will stand as a responsible subject before God’s judgement.^[8] We also have other assertions that are based on the understanding of man and woman as persons and subjects, namely, the verbal revelation in which God has spoken to man and woman or that in prayer man and woman speak to God. These assertions are obscure yet they are part of Christian reality and we can try to comprehend them if we have a clearer understanding of the notions of subject and person. Some of these assertions become clear in the individual determinations of personhood which are studied in anthropology, for example “man’s transcendence, his responsibility and freedom, his orientation towards the incomprehensible mystery, his being in history and in the world, and his social nature.”^[9]

The problem and risk however subsists in the hiddenness of the personal experience, which is an original and basic experience of one’s own subjectivity. Such an experience is “absolutely wordless and unreflexive experience, but neither is it something which can be expressed in words and indoctrinated from without.”^[10]

In addition, there are so many empirical experiences, which are not part of the person, yet they determine, establish, shape, and condition the person in his reality. We can even say that these empirical experiences explain the reality of the human person. The anthropological and empirical sciences unravel, analyse and derive the human person because in some way, a person is a product of their data and realities but this is not all. These sciences legitimately try to dissolve the person at times into “empirical causes which can be specified and analysed and isolated. These sciences are to a large extent correct in their methods and in their results, and everyone’s own painful experience in this own existence shows how very right they are.”^[11]Nevertheless, the reality of the human person is bigger that the empirical sciences. The human person is more complex than any discipline on its own. The human person is a mystery and the message somehow helps in comprehending the mystery!

In front of the empirical experiences, the person can run away from personal responsibility for what he or she is. He or she can blame the past, the world around them, and the individual data of their reality. They can think of themselves as coming to be, not through one’s own actions but through the other, or through empirical experiences that are outside their being. “And this other from which he has come is an implacable, impersonal nature, and this includes history, which he can also interpret as nature. History has plenty of message for the human person as a hearer. History informs the person about the past struggles and joys of persons. It is an important message. The Christian standpoint need not labour itself to think of the empirical experiences as being merely matter or body, or as being different and clearly separated from the spirit or the soul. This material separation and distinction is not important when we are talking about the empirical experiences, the impersonal nature, or the history that establishes and derives the human person.

For example, the sociological and biological anthropologies have different provisional methods and none of them can claim that it is the only anthropology or claim that the other anthropology apart from itself is meaningless. The truth is that the results of one anthropology can be used by other anthropologies. The unifying element of these regional anthropologies,

however, is that each one of them has the right and legitimacy to explain the human being according to their perspective but the limitation is that each regional anthropology gives its explanation of the human person according to their particular data. The human person is reduced to elements and engages in the work of reconstructing the human person from the particular data that is at his or her disposal and in so doing ends up controlling the person as well.^[12] The regional and particular anthropologies explain the fact that the origins of the human being lie in the world and that their roots are found in the empirical realities. These empirical realities always touch the human person in a significant single way but also affect him or her integrally. That is why, each of the anthropologies are valid because they all study particular data that is real and it is this particular data and empirical data that affects, establishes and derive the person. The data is real and that is why each anthropology is validated from that perspective. In short then the human person as the hearer of the message is historical and affected by daily experiences and particular data or empirical data.^[13]

Furthermore, the person hears the message from people who are bearers of the original God’s self-communication, namely, the prophets and their role is to interpret the original selfcommunication of God. However, this self-interpretation of the original message is not a human or natural process of reflection but it is God who directs it. Hence, if God reveals Himself in self-communication, He interprets Himself through the human bearers whom He authorises and directs.^[14] This does not mean that prophetic interpretation and God’s selfinterpretation through the prophet are subsequent; but they are both part of an essentially historical instance within God’s transcendental self-communication.

God’s self-communication and self-interpretation of the original message, on one hand, and the prophet’s interpretation of God’s self-communication on the other hand, both have their own histories and are both governed by the universal salvific will of God and providence.^[15] In theological terms, the light of faith is offered to every person. This is the same light, which helped the prophets to grasp and to proclaim the divine message; and helps the hearers to understand the message. This light is nothing else “but the divinized subjectivity of man which is constituted by God’s self-communication.”^[16]

The light of faith is so important as it helps the hearers to correctly understand and transmit the transcendental experiences of God in concrete history through correct

interpretation. The role of the prophet is to express the transcendental experiences of God correctly “in such a way that it becomes for others too the correct and pure objectification of their own transcendental experiences of God, and it can be recognised in this correctness and purity.”^[17] This shows that not everyone is a prophet but others are only hearers of God’s selfcommunication which is given through the mediation of the prophets.^[18]

In fact, through the self-interpretation of the prophets, other people find a productive model, animation, and inspiration to follow. This does not mean that the prophet shares with the hearers his or her purely relative point of view but he or she also shares with them the transcendental self-communication of God. In this way, then, what the prophet shares, as a product of self-interpretation is not some theory but it is the reality in history, of things that have taken place and have been revealed by God.^[19] The hearers are interpersonal which means that they constantly dialogue and check their self-interpretation against the interpretations of prophets who are regarded as productive models and animating persons. One’s selfinterpretation is not solipsistic but happens in the context of a historical religious community with its figures like prophets whose interpretations are taken as points of reference. The prophets have authority in the interpretations of revelations because the hearers listen to them as sources of inspiration and models. It is in this sense then we can talk about official and categorical history of revelation.^[20]

We can already say here that there are two main points to remember here: first, the person is the hearer of the message and that the person hears the message in the context of categorical experiences and history. Second, the prophets communicate the message to the hearers. Finally, as we end this section, we want to emphasize the fact that the hearer of the message cannot understand the message without God’s light.

^[1] Karl RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, An introduction to the idea of Christianity, translated by William V. DYCH, London, Darton Longman and Todd, 1978, 24.

^[2] Cf. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 25.

^[3] Cf. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 24-25.

^[4] Karl RAHNER, The prospects for dogmatic theology, in Karl RAHNER, “Theological investigations, Volume 1: God, Christ, Mary and Grace,” New York, Crossroad publishing company, 1982, 43.

^[5] RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 25.

^[6] RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 25.

^[7] Anne CARR, The God who is involved, in Gordon MIKOSKI, “Theology Today,” 38 (1981) 315.

^[8] Cf. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 25-26.

^[9] RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 26.

^[10] RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 26.

^[11] RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 27.

^[12] Cf. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 28.

^[13] Cf. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 27-28.

^[14] Cf. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 158.

^[15] Cf. RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 155.

^[16] RAHNER, Foundations of Christian faith, 159.