Metaphysics and Theology
List of Articles
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Jean Borella, Enlightenment of mystical theology
Jean Borella’s Lumières de la théologie mystique (“Enlightenment of Mystical Theology”) brings together the best indications for understanding theology as an initiatory and spiritual path, rather than as mere speculation and intellectual exercise. The section presented follows the teachings of St. Denys the Areopagite.
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Like a fly behind glass
The vision afforded by pure metaphysical discourse is like that of a fly behind glass. Starting from what metaphysics is not, this is the conclusion we reach.
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Theology of Religions
The plurality of religions has posed a problem for Christianity and, since Nostra Ætate (Catholic Declaration of 1965), several discordant points of view have been developed. Here, we suggest a hierarchy of the axiomatics proposed by Guillaume de Vaulx d’Arcy, from the most fundamental metaphysics to the most pragmatic hic et nunc, in order to sketch out what might constitute a consensus.
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Do you have to be Intelligent to be Saved?
To read the highly intellectual texts of S. Thomas Aquinas, for example, or presenting salvation through knowledge, whether they come directly from India (jñānayoga for example) or through the work of René Guénon (advaita vedānta), we can legitimately ask ourselves whether we need to be intelligent to be saved. Since the answer to this question was negative, it remained to be explained.
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René Guénon, Esotericism and Christianity
In his Christ the Original Mystery, Esoterism and the Mystical Way (Angelico Press), Jean Borella sets out to show the limits of the Guénonian definition of esotericism and how it cannot be applied to Christianity, whose particular essence does not lend itself to it in the least.
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Metaphysica Sine Theologia Nihil
While the metaphysical approach is universal and inherent to all theology, metaphysics, as such, cannot be. This paper clarifies the links between metaphysics and theology, calling into question a Schuonian metaphysica perennis and the Guénonian identity of being and knowing in the human condition.
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Jean Borella, on the Analogical Unity of Religions
A “transcendent unity of religions” is problematic, and Jean Borella has repeatedly denounced it (“Intelligence spirituelle et surnaturel”, in Éric Vatré, La Droite du Père, Enquête sur la Tradition catholique aujourd’hui, Trédaniel, 1994 ; “Problématique de l’unité des religions”, afterword to Bruno Bérard, Introduction à une métaphysique des mystères chrétiens, L’Harmattan, 2005; “La religio perennis n’est pas une religion” in René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, héritages et controverses, L’Harmattan, 2023). This article presents Jean Borella’s arguments in favor of an analogical unity of religions.
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The Christological Hologram or the Hologramic Christ
As the Gospel indicates: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40), this means that if Christ is the Neighbor par excellence. it is because any neighbor is Christ. As Jean Borella has put it « the neighbor is the matter of neighborhood, Christ is its eternal form“. Here came the notion of a hologramic Christ, present in totality in any human being. Hence, this open a path into the metaphysical mystery of the One and the multiplicity, at both ends of Becoming (Creation) and Resorption (Pleroma).
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The Two Step Cure
Having considered the two stages of the “extinction” of Sufism, initially exposed by René Guénon, we realize that they are eminently present in Christianity. Studying Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Taoism, we realize that these two times are equally present. It is an original resonance of these seven religions on this criterion of salvation in two stages.