Differences Between Non-Historical, Historical and Trans-Historical Visions

* Based on the ideas of Raimon Panikkar, in the context of his Cosmotheandric vision (see: the Cosmotheandric Experience)

Discussion

Gaetano Sabetta:

"We have already dealt with the problem of pluralism as pre-requisite to explain the philosophical foundation of Panikkar thought, we are now going deeper in the immediate context in which Panikkar’s cosmotheandric vision should be viewed. Reality or Being cannot be totally identified with consciousness/reason/Logos, but Matter and Spirit must also be taken in account, according to our author. Therefore the crisis of our time is a consequence of the enthronement of the reason as the definite referee with its corollary of the historical consciousness. But Panikkar is also sure that the actual moment is fading away and a new, trans-historical consciousness (cosmotheandric moment or new innocence) is already in the making.

Panikkar identifies three fundamental attitudes, kairological moments, in the unfolding of the human consciousness, namely non-historical, historical and trans-historical.

The Ecumenical moment is marked both by non-historical consciousness and by the presence of the ‘Man of Nature’. Nature is the house ( oikos ), the habitat of Man. Man is part of the Nature. Here the divine is subsumed in the nature, therefore his background is theocosmos . Nature and culture are not two separated entities; hence the center of the universe is the cosmos, cosmocentric . Man’s sensitivity is holistic, responsible and inclusive of all cosmos, since the cosmos is considered as a living organism ( anima mundi ) and we mortals shared in its destiny. The human mind at this moment in history is more intuitive than reflective. Man intuitively knows that he is part of the all and not above the cosmos. Innocence, unity and solidarity characterize this moment of consciousness.

The Economic moment is characterized both by the ‘Man above the Nature’ and by historical consciousness. Man knows that he knows (reflexive knowledge) and consequently comes the enthronement and exclusive dominance of reason. The Divine is no more in connection with the World and Man becomes the measure of all things. His vision of reality is anthropocentric , having history as the horizon. Man is increasingly alienating himself from the cosmos and thinks of it more and more in exploitative terms. It is the birth of the trinity: reason, science and technology. Man experiences alienation: he has lost his innocence.

The dominance of reason has its consequences in: (main characteristics)

• the thrust toward the future. What matters to Man is his destiny, and he

must arrange it, therefore, he must use all his scientific tools to know how things will develop in space and time. It is a pan-economic vision of life in which the tools of ‘credit and future growth’ become the only measurement.

• the thrust toward universalism, namely the assumption that there is only

one pattern, one unique structure of civilized life, therefore only one God, one science, one technology, one economy etc. (the idea of history as linear).

But this Economic moment is in a deep crisis and signs of it can be detected everywhere, especially if we think of

• the absolute instrumentalisation of the cosmos (ecology and ecosophy);

• the humanistic crisis testified by the fragmentation of the human and by

Man’s progressive alienation from himself, others and cosmos;

• the meaninglessness of the Divine, who seems no more able to bed

“among the humankind”.

The Catholic moment is marked by both the trans-historical consciousness and a new tension and interrelation between the three forces of the universe: Cosmos, Human and Divine. It is the dawn of a holistic vision of reality: the cosmotheandric vision.

It is the moment of a new innocence (not the lost innocence that cannot be recovered), glimpsed since the dawn of humanity. In his words: “The cosmotheandric principle stresses the intrinsic relationship between them, so that this threefold current forms the entire realm of all that is. More traditional names for this radical relativity of the entire reality would be the Christian understanding of Trinity, the Hindu notion of advaita and the Buddhist pratètyasamutpáda .”

Panikkar introduces the cosmotheandric vision as “human or cultural invariant” (human universal), although this vision may be expressed in many ways according to the different cultures (cultural localism). It is the triadic (or Trinitarian or a-dualistic) pattern of reality; the ‘three worlds’ – an above, a below and a in-between : the Gods, the Humans and Nature; in Panikkar’s terminology Theos , Anthropos and Cosmos . One could argue that neither Buddhism nor Western secularism seems to require the presence of God. But Panikkar maintains that, despite they can do without the word ‘God’, they still make reference to a third reality. In Western secularism the third reference point might be seen in the concrete, i.e. the universal and immanent.

In Buddhism the third point could be called Nirvana.

This vision claims to express the structure of reality, to recover the foundational Trinitarian structure underlying any reality:

“The cosmotheandric principle could be stated by saying that the divine, the human and the earthly are the three irreducible dimensions which constitute the real, i.e. any reality inasmuch as it is real.”

No one of these dimensions can subsist without the other two:

“There is no God without Man and World.

There is no Man without God and the World. There is no World without God and Man.”

The last statement is a challenge to theism: Man and World are as necessary as God. Certainly it might be challenged on the ground that it seems to negate the transcendence of God, making Him the natural cause of the finite world. The second statement goes directly against certain anthropo-monism and cannot but be welcomed: God and the Cosmos are as important as Man."

(https://www.academia.edu/9828052/Panikkars_Intercultural_and_Inter-religious_Challenge)