God, Transcendence and Freedom in the Philosophy of Jaspers

Author(s): J. N. Hartt
Source: The Review of Metaphysics , Dec., 1950, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Dec., 1950), pp. 247-258
Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc.

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20123211

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Philosophy Education Society Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to The Review of Metaphysics

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Critical Studies

GOD, TRANSCENDENCE AND FREEDOM IN THE

PHILOSOPHY OF JASPERS

Outside the strictly methodological camps Karl Jaspers is

widely regarded as one of the foremost European philosophers.
In spite of the very limited availability of his thought in Eng
lish, and in spite also of the strongly prejudicial treatment
accorded hm in Grene's Dreadful Freedom,1 his position is
attracting increasing attention in the English-speaking philo
sophical world. Philosophers and theologians interested not
only in anything having an Existentialist flavor but also in any
vigorous and convinced discussion of metaphysical problems,
are finding him worth very careful consideration. It is my
purpose in this paper to comment briefly upon Jaspers' inter
pretations of three such questions. These lie at the heart of
his system, a system imposing not only for its inclusiveness
and penetration but also for its formidable terminological and
stylistic complexities. I have nothing more than a smattering
of knowledge of that system, but I have gone quite far enough
into it to realize that a sturdy guide would be worth much fine
gold, and a knowledgeable companion to cheer one when on
the heights and wrapped in impenetrable mists, would be worth
many precious stones.
Jaspers' is an existentialist system, but this does not mean
that it is an elaboration of a private and virtually incommuni
cable vision. Just as surely as the metaphysicians of the past
and of those continuing traditions where such problems are
taken seriously, his concern is with Being. He does not mean
to talk about Being from a "standpoint" so esoteric, elusive
and doctrinaire that neither Being nor the "standpoint" is really
intelligible.2 On the other hand the program is not that of

1 Dreadful Freedom, Marjorie Grene, University of Chicago Press:

1948. She finds it hard to believe that there is anything Jaspers has done
that somebody hasn't done better. She is willing, however, to credit him
with honesty and uprightness.
2 "Die Philosophie des Umgreifenden hat keinen Standpunkt. Man
befragt eine Philosophie, welchen 'Standpunkt* sie vertrete, was in ihr

[247]

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
248 /. N. Hartt

formulating the system of systems, the all-comprehending sys

tem.3 In his own terms it is a matter of "systematic" ?-* of the
delineation and analysis of the structure of Being, where 'delin
eation' is ultimately elucidation (Erhellung) and not 'objective
analysis' (Gegenstandforschung). Now whether or not the
latter distinction arouses any enthusiasm, the intent is to lay
bare the character and structure of being; and this intent will
be honored except in the most doctrinaire positivistic ? both
logical and theological ? circles.
Our concern is with God, Transcendence, and Freedom.
The first task is to relate these notions to Being-as-such. Being
as such is the Umgreifende, a term translated recently in The
Perennial Scope of Philosophy 4 as the Comprehensive. This
will perhaps do as well ? and as little ? as any other, even
though it lacks the resonance of the German. The Compre
hensive is what appears, or what is signified or symbolized in
its appearances, in the multiple differentiations of Being. It is
what every particular thing "intends". Lying behind or beyond
the subject-object relation (Spaltung) it is not itself an object
of knowledge, yet every object and every act of apprehending
objects involves it.5 Here one important aspect of Transcend
ence already appears : that which transcends or eludes standard
cognizing and is yet materially implicit in all cognition and

eigentlich gemeint und gewollt werde, was ihr 'das Letzte* sei. Eine
Philosophie des Umgreifenden verwirft diese Frage. Sie sucht alle m?gli
chen Standpunkte, vermag sich auf jeden zu stellen, geht hinein in alle
Gestalten, in alle Masken und in alle Welten." Von Der Wahrheit, 181;
Piper & Co., Munich, 1947. Referred to hereafter simply as Wahrheit.
3 The Philosophy of the Comprehensive is not presumed to be a
comprehensive system, I should think, in the Hegelian sense. At the
same time he has undertaken a criticism of the historically significant
systems of metaphysic. Cf. Philosophie, Vol. III.
4 The Perennial Scope of Philosophy is the mildly astonishing title
given to Jaspers' lectures entitled in the original, Der Philosophische Glaube.
The translation is by Ralph Manheim, the publisher is Philosophical
Library, 1949.
5 "Das Umgreifende wird nicht selbst zum Gegenstand, aber kommt
in der Spaltung von Ich und Gegenstand zur Erscheinung. Es selbst bleibt
Hintergrund, aus ihm grenzenlos in der Erscheinung sich erhellend, aber
es bleibt immer das Umgreifende." Einf?hrung in die Philosophie, p. 30.
Artemis, Zurich, 1949; cf. Perennial Scope of Philosophy, pp. 9, 28.

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 God, Transcendence and Freedom 249

which we directly apprehend in what Jaspers' calls Faith

(Glaube, faith as trust he designates as Vertrauen). Faith is
one of the cardinal elements of his system. It includes the
intuitive apprehension of Being, a "knowing" that is above
ordinary knowledge, which is concerned with objectified being;
and it also includes decision, the radical exercise of radical
freedom by which I become truly myself. "Was Ich glaube,
das bin Ich" (Wahrheit, 355).6
Umgreifende or Being-as-such is apprehended through its
modes. Passage to the modes of Being is effected through the
subject-object relation,7 which distinction itself, as we have
just seen, is transcended in Faith. Being-as-such differentiates
itself into Being-in-itself and Being-which-we-are. (Jaspers
himself says that this a self-differentation: "Das eine Um
greifende spaltet sich... in die Weisen des Umgreifenden. Statt
dass uns ein einziges Unsagbares die unbestimmte and uner
f?llte Grenze bleibt, gliedert sich das Umgreifende gleichsam
in R?ume" (Wahrheit, 47). This notion of a self-differentia ting
whole reminds one of the Phenomenology of Mind. It is
more important to note that it suggests a kind of penetration
of Being-as-such or the Umgreifende that belies the original
description of the latter as being largely Hintergrund. Taken
seriously, it would break free of the Kantian mold and give us
the suggestion at least of real agency, not our own, really though
vaguely apprehended in the Umgreifende.) Being in itself,
or "being that surrounds us," is what stands over against us,
and it has a twofold modification: (1) the World, (2) the
Transcendent.
( 1 ) The World is being which we are not. It is the incom
prehensible other in which we are "immersed" and with which
we are involved (cf. Wahrheit, 85ff.; Perennial Scope of Philos~
ophy, 12ff.); it is the origin of all reality that we call material

6 Cf. Wahrheit, 640, where he says that Glaube is the medium

through which the truth pertaining to Existenz is apprehended: "fur
Existenz der Satz gilt: Glauben ist Sein' (italics his, p. 641).
7 This is one of the decisive points at which the Kantian influence
seems very strong. The whole structure of Being and Symbol (Chiffer)
appears to me to be controlled by a Kantian distinction between thing
in-itself and phenomenon.

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 250 /. N. Hartt

and to which the categories of Substance, Time, Space, Causal

ity, Thinghood, etc. are applied (cf. Wahrheit, 89-90). Yet
the World is more than this. "Es ist Grund und Ursprung der
Realit?t," and we are therefore in it and of it. "Die Welt
macht m?glich, dass wir sind, and was wir sind und sein k?n
nen" (Ibid., 92).
(2) The World is but one mode of Being-in-itself. The
other mode can hardly be called mode in the same sense be
cause it is Transcendenz, that to which the world points, and
which is not determinate being as the world is determinate
being. To us the World is other: Transcendenz is the radical
Other. The World is not causa sui. In mythological language,
it is created being ( Wahrheit, 90 ).
The widest significance can be given to Transcendent Be
ing only from the side of Being-which-we-are, and we turn
now to this other primary differentiation of the Umgreifende.
Further modes appear on this side: Dasein, Consciousness in
general, Spirit, and Existenz. In the first three we have "imma
nental modes", and in the fourth a "transcendental mode" (cf.
Wahrheit, 50, 77). Dasein, Consciousness in general and
Spirit express the Umgreifende so far it can be objectified, so
far as we can comprehend ourselves as "adequate empirical ob
jects of biological, psychological, sociological and historical
enquiry" (Perennial Scope of Philosophy, 14). Existenz, on
the other hand, is the real core of self-being. "Existenz ist der
Ursprung eigentlicher Wirklichkeit, ohne die alle jene Weite
and Daseinswirklichkeit Verblasen w?re" (Wahrheit, 77).
Existenz is the name of our essential freedom, which, though
set within limits that can only be acknowledged and not over
come, is nonetheless underived.

Every mode of the Umgreifende encounters limits that are

insuperable. The immanental modes of our own being encoun
ter the limits set by the World; Existenz encounters Tran
scendent Being, which is that wherein and whereby we are really
ourselves and are really free (Wahrheit, 107). Thus, although
power of and for essential freedom "cannot be derived from
something else" (Perennial Scope of Philosophy, 59), we must
acknowledge the finite nature of our own being, "Wo ich

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 God, Transcendence and Freedom 251

eigentlich ich selbst bin, weiss ich, dass ich mir geschenkt
werde. Je entschiedener meine Freiheit mir bewusst wird, desto
entschiedener zugleich auch die Transcendenz, durch die bin
ich. Ich bin Existenz nur in eins mit dem Wissen um Trans
cendenz als um die Macht, durch die ich selbst bin." (Wahr~
heit, 110)
Is Jaspers saying riere that the most important clue to the
nature of reality is provided by Existenz, both for what it is in
itself and for what it points to ? Properly to apprehend Existenz
we leave objectiva ted being behind, not because it is a system
atic falsification; to the contrary, Weltsein appears in phenom
ena and is known in and through its phenomena, and the same
holds for Selbstsein in its outer layers. Yet freedom is and
points to Being for the apprehension of which phenomena and
phenomenal abstractions such as representations, analogies,
myths, etc. have only a very limited range of significance. Thus
freedom, Existenz, cannot be thought of as providing an anaU
ogy of Transcendent Being.8 At the same time it is apparent
that through all objectivations of Weltsein and through all
the immanental modes of our own being there runs a powerful
thread of intentionality: all finite modes seek the Infinite, and
thus all finite modes reveal their own insufficiency, their unre
lievable contingency.9 The crisis of the insufficiency of all
modes is revealed in Existenz: "Die Existenz, das Umgrei
fende, in dem wir eigentlich wir selbst werden, hat wiederum
dieselbe Gestalt des Ungen?gens, aber wohin sie dr?ngt, das
ist nicht eigentlich das Zur?ck in die Erscheinung des Daseins,
des Denkens, des Geistes, die ihr in der Zeit unumg?nglich and
unerl?sslich sind." (Wahrheit, 659). Thus from existential
freedom the quest for the Infinite is pressed forward: relapse
into lower modes, which is to say, lower modes of intentionality,
would be meaningless.
It may seem that Jaspers has translated a traditional notion
of the natural hunger in all things for God, into his own ter

8 Jaspers rejects, apparently without qualification (and I am afraid

it seems to me also without due consideration) the possibility of positive
analogical knowledge of transcendent being. Cf. Einf?hrung, 46ff.
9 Cf. Philosophie, I, pp. 3fF., the section beginning, "Ungen?gen
an allem Sein, das nicht Transcendenz ist."

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
252 /. N. Hartt

minology. This is very nearly the case. Although God has not
yet appeared on this scene to be named as such, He is already
before us as Transcendence, particularly as Transcendent Be
ing that stands over against our own essential freedom. God
is not the name of a particular being that can be described and
known, for in any proper sense of the word God is "unknow
able". Furthermore, no proofs for God's existence can be
taken seriously for philosophical purposes, because "proofs"
pertain to a level of understanding that has nothing directly
to do with transcendent Being, and also because whatever can
be "proved" has only a limited and relative truth.10 God is
Transcendent Being that I really and significantly encounter
only in my freedom and in that venture in and for freedom that
Jaspers calls faith.11 But this is not to say that God is posited
by faith in the sense of will to believe. Faith is acknowledge
ment of Being to which in my freedom I am bound but which
does not divest me of this freedom. In Jaspers' own terms:
"Die h?chste Freiheit weiss sich in der Freiheit von der Welt
zugleich als tiefste Gebundenheit an Transcendenz" (Einf?h
rung in die Philosophie, 43 ).
What further can be affirmed of this Being ? In the end,
as I shall say in somewhat greater detail below, Jaspers seems
not to go beyond a via negativa, at least so far as speculative
philosophy is concerned.12 God is one, not many (cf. Wahr
heit, 690); He is not the World (Ibid.) nor anything in the
world absolutized; He is not personal in any easily recognizable
meaning of that term; He is "known" only indirectly and that
by the translation of the world of phenomena into "ciphers" or

10 Cf. Perennial Scope of Philosophy, 90, and Wahrheit, passim

under Geltung.
11 "Der Mensch, der sich wirklich seiner Freiheit bewusst wird,
wird sich zugleich Gottes gewiss. Freiheit und Gott sind untrennbar...
Ich bin mir gewiss: in meiner Freiheit bin Ich nicht durch mich selbst,
sondern werde mir in ihr geschenkt, denn ich kann mir ausbleiben und
mein Freisein nicht erzwingen. Wo ich eigentlich ich selbst bin, bin ich
gewiss, dass ich es nicht durch mich selbst bin." (Einf?hrung, 43)
12 Jaspers seems sometimes to grant that what we lack in terms of
knowledge of God can be made up for by certain concrete activities, such
as love. Existenz has transcendent being, he says, only in such acts, and
not in myths, speculations, knowledge, etc. Cf. Wahrheit, 632.

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 God, Transcendence and Freedom 253

symbols ( Wahrheit, 1051 ). He Himself is no cipher or symbol:

He is reality itself (Ibid.), but this reality is apprehended along
no particular line. He is known only as the whole to which all
things aspire as to their fulfillment (Wahrheit, 1053). He is
the hidden God (Verborgene Gott) who does not speak direct
ly, or whose "speech" is incommunicably directed toward con
crete persons (Wahrheit, 643-44). Through all of this, then,
we seem to rise no higher than a negative theology. As Jaspers
puts it: "Das Wahrsein von Welt und Gott ist durch die
Weise der Mitteilung nur negativ zu charakterisieren" (Ibid.,
644).
This "knowing" that is not-knowing cannot be supple
mented and completed by the concrete religious life. The
notion of communion with God in and through the 'church'
appears to have no real meaning, perhaps because the church
? or the cult in general ? arbitrarily invests something finite
with sacredness; and it also systematically absolutizes the rela
tive and contingent, and finally, claims a "definitive possession
of the truth" which has been revealed unto it (Perennial Scope
of Philosophy, 77 ff.). The latter claim, according to Jaspers,
makes "authentic communication" impossible (Ibid., 77). He
would not at all deny that there is truth about God and God's
relations with man in religion, but this truth is imbedded in a
matrix of myth upon which the religious person refuses to exert
adequate critical pressure.
Is this Jaspers' last word upon the knowledge of God and
the communion with God ? Shall we conclude that in God we
have not to do with a Being but with Being, not with a power
but with power ? Certainly there is much to confirm this con
clusion in Jaspers' system, yet there are fugitive indications of
a quite different result. One or two of these may be worth our
consideration in this context.

For one thing, the acknowledgement of the possibilities

of Existenz and the pursuit of the fulfillment involves us in
a "dialogue" with the world and God (Wahrheit, 377ff.).
Indeed, in his Einf?hrung in die Philosophie Jaspers declares
that the reality of the world has a "disappearing Dasein be
tween God and Existenz" (p. 76), so that the ultimate conver

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
254 /. N. Hartt

sation is between ourselves and God, the World being the

common language. If this means anything, it means that Exis
tenz as freedom within limitation tells us something more about
God than that He is Ursprung beyond these limitations. More
over, to be bound to such a Being is not to be determined by a
"necessitating cause". This Jaspers insists upon: God reveals
Himself as the source and as the goal of our freedom. Perhaps
bis only meaning here is that possibilities are placed before
us mysteriously and inexplicably, but I should think it a
fair inference that "God as goal" meant "fellowship" or
"communion" in and with God. And finally: the general
revelation of God in and through the modes of Umgreifende
Jaspers himself has seriously qualified in this direction, for the
modes and their differentiated phenomena do not have equal
revelatory power. There is a kind of scale here, consummated
in and crowned by Existenz. About this we may ask whether
the scale is our own arbitrary speculative and fanciful con
trivance, or is it a fair reading of a hierarchy of intentionality ?
Jaspers appears to me to say with considerable emphasis that
the latter is really the case. All other modes are immanental
and all therefore point beyond themselves, they all signify some
thing other than themselves. This is even true of Transcendenz,
of Being-in-itself (objective Being), for the specification of
mere Transcendenz awaits the acknowledgement of the con
crete transcendent mode of freedom or Existenz. Thus the
transcendent mode of objective being is not much more than
a re-statement of the fact that 'all things mortal do plainly
testify of their mortality', or, that all things naturally participate
in nothingness. It is from the reality of Existenz that Tran
scendent Being becomes positively meaningful, if such it becomes
at alL It is only here that the constitutive dialogue of Existenz
with its Source can occur.
For me this remains the most perplexing question of all:
does God become positively meaningful even then ? Or is He
left as Wirklichkeit mysteriously expressing itself through its
modes, all of which are 'signs and symbols,' including Existenz
itself.13 But how are the symbols to be interpreted, unless sym

!3 Philosophie, III, 190ff.

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 God, Transcendence and Freedom 255

bol and reality symbolized are somehow or other positively and

simultaneously embraced, and unless this embracing, this primal
apprehension can be brought up out of the vagueness and misti
ness of the 'merely intuitive' into conceptual clarity. This failing
we are left to ponder God as Umgreifendes des Umgreifenden,
manifesting itself in mysterious unity and fecundity.
I must profess that to be left only with the latter would be
a disappointing issue from such heroic and titanic labors. It
would be disappointing for two reasons, primarily, of which the
first is that the system leaves itself open and ready for the
pantheistic kiss of death, and the second, that nonetheless it
would take relatively little to set it back on the right track.
As to the first: Jaspers' intention clearly is to avoid the
confusion of God and the World. Transcendent Being is not
another name for Weltsein. AU "immanentisms" break down,
he believes, at one point or another. Yet how little it would
take to turn Umgreifende into Infinite Substance whence pro
ceeds an infinite number of things in an eternal procession, and
little matter at this juncture that substance is a category of the
understanding.
In this connection I find it hard to suppose that the notion
of self-differentiation of Umgreifende is either a terminolog
ical accident or irrelevancy. Being does not simply appear to
us to behave this way; this is not simply a subjectively and
arbitrarily determined standpoint from which to survey a
wholly impenetrable reality. This is really the way it is. Very
well, but from here we may go either towards Spinoza or Hegel
on the one hand, or towards Theism on the other. Jaspers does
not intend to consort with Spinoza or Hegel, because in their
systems we see a mode absolutized with the consequent falsi
fication of Being as a whole and the denial of Transcendence.
Moreover, Existenz disappears from both systems. Hence
Jaspers turns away from the specious allure of the greatest of
pantheistic alternatives: Being as such, God the Transcendent,
in which we live and move and have our being, is not Deus sive
Natura, nor the Absolute eternally differentiating itself.
As to the second reason for disappointment, Jaspers does
not come out for Theism, although it would take relatively

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 256 /. N. Hartt

little to turn the system in that direction. This little is not

forthcoming. What is lacking is, first, a clearer statement con
cerning the 'contingency' of all things over against God. This
is not the part-whole relationship. What, then, is it ? Jaspers
uses the language of Creator-creature, but he insists that it is
mythological language. This judgement upon such language
is incomplete. Traditional Theism has not undertaken to
describe Creation in pictorial, mythical terms. Creation is the
name of a mystery and at the same time it expresses, or per
haps we should say, points to an absolutely unique relation
ship of finite to Infinite, a relationship absolutely constitutive
of the finite agent while nonconstitutive of the Infinite.14 Thus
the notion of Creation has positive content of two orders: (1)
the limited character of all things and the radical dependence
of all upon Transcendent Being. Here Jaspers gives his assent.
(2) the self-completeness of Transcendent Being in relation
to all things 'created'. I cannot account for Jaspers' silence at
this point.
In the second place, the notion of Symbol, so important for
Jaspers' system, is cheated of its full significance and power
by the underlying Kantian epistemological perspective, for a
very large part of his thought is devoted to the creation of an
ascending scale of intentionality, whereby either from its last
level, i.e., freedom, or from the whole scale, certain positive
affirmations concerning the divine nature could be reasonably
and intelligibly formulated. But at the end, and I believe with
real violence following for the system as a whole, Jaspers lumps
the whole scale together in a blanket denial that any analogy
yields positive knowledge of God's nature.
Thirdly, there is lacking an unequivocal position vis-a-vis
the 'communion' of Existenz with God. Jaspers, as I assume is
well known, makes a great deal of communication. All the
modes of Being have to do with communication but for our

14 Farrer, Finite and Infinite, has attempted a re-statement of the

theistic position here. "Divine creativity is a real connexion accounting
for the existence of that system of finite substance which operates in its
own finite manner... Creation is a relation which simply posits one of
its terms" (p. 22).

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 God, Transcendence and Freedom 257

immediate purposes his convictions concerning Existenz and

communication have paramount importance. Let us note, then,
that Existenz presupposes communication with Existenz:
"Denn Existenz wird nur dann sich offenbar and damit wirk
lich, wenn sie mit der andern Existenz, durch sie and zugleich
mit ihr, zu sich selber kommt" (Wahrheit, 377). And again:
"Er ist er selbst und einsam zugleich doch nur, insofern er f?r
andere ist. Selbstsein und In-Kommunikation-Sein ist untren
nbar" (Ibid., 546). Self-disclosure, which ultimately takes on
the character of love, is thus constitutive of Existenz. But now
our question is, in what sense does this hold for the relation of
Existenz to God ? Here we have freedom calling unto freedom,
God speaking to ourselves, to elicit the creative response of
faith. Is this Divine Word simply and exclusively the range
of the modes of Being, each signifying what it itself is not ?
To leave it here is to fall back upon non-personal communica
tion, indeed, it is to deny communication in any significant
sense. How shall I interpret impersonally that with which my
freedom is bound up without denying either that freedom or
the reality of Gebundenheitsein which Jaspers everywhere so
vigorously affirms ? It will not do to re-assert simply my de
pendence upon a creaturely other: dependence here is upon
the Transcendent Other who created me but who does not
derive my existence from some other creature, for in respect
to all other creatures I am a "new creation" (cf. Perennial
Scope of Philosophy, 5). But if this is the case, how can
Jaspers insist that we have no personal dealings with God, as
he says so clearly in his brief discussion of prayer.15 And why
does he believe that the beatification of this life is the achieve
ment of an "impersonal love of God" ? (ci.Einf?hrung in die
Philosophie, p. 48).
Fourthly, there is Jaspers' understanding of faith, which
is both profoundly suggestive and, if my presumption may be
pardoned, incomplete. He sees faith as at once a primal
apprehension of God and a commitment or resolution of one
self. But to what is the commitment made ? Is this a response
to God who makes His will known and who speaks therefore,

15 Perennial Scope of Philosophy, 82.

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
258 /. N. Hartt

'person to person', or is it simply the affirmation of my possi

bilities over against a world that is, happily, congenial to them,
within certain limits ? Certainly Jaspers means much more than
the latter, but I cannot see what more. Even though God re
veals Himself in our freedom, we seem incurably poverty
stricken when it comes to saying to what or to whom we
respond in faith.
A negative theology draws its life and meaning ultimately
from a positive knowledge of God, and that positive knowledge
cannot itself be erected upon a structure of negations, although
it should be clarified and purified by negations. So far as
Jaspers allows a direct though vague awareness or apprehen
sion of God, he admits this, but in the end he does not proceed
to the delineation of the super-structure or the foundation of
positive knowledge of God. So far, accordingly, as he refuses
to set forth positively the nature of Being throughout the whole
extent of it, his system is threatened with relapse into the
"point of view" philosophizing that he clearly repudiates. For
one, I should like to see this system spared that fate.
J. N. Hartt
Yale University.

The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. IV, No 2, December 1950.

This content downloaded from

193.198.185.165 on Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:10:29 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms