This concise and direct book lays out the fundamentals of Christianity in the ultimate language of metaphysics. A language that is neither philosophical jargon nor the result of esoteric digressions, but the simple expression of a mind reflecting on the Revelation transmitted once and for all in the year zero of our era, followed by two thousand years of theological insights. The gain is that this language, by showing the topicality of the “good news”, makes it as audible to the minds of modern men as we are.
Contents
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FIRST PART: On the Persistence of the Sacred
- Chap. I. Structure of the Sacred
- Chap. II. Reason and Intelligence
- Chap. III. Speculation and Revelation
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PART TWO: Access to the Mysteries
- Chap. IV. Symbols and Paradoxes
- Chap. V. Metaphysics of Analogy
- Chap. VI. On Mystical Theology
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THIRD PART. Christian Mysteries
- Chap. VII. The Universal Trinity
- Chap. VIII. The Hologramic Christ
- Chap. IX. The Virgin: from the Cosmic Order to the Divine Order
- Chap. X. Creation
- Chap. XI. On the End of the World
- Chap. XII. On Beyond Being
Excerpt
On Esotericism and Metaphysics
If esotericism indicates veiling, metaphysics indicates unveiling (Borella). Whatever is manifested is never quite present because its invisible root, its cause, its source, always remains unmanifested. In this sense we can say that esotericism suggests the existence of an unmanifest and therefore of a veiling.
Quite different is the pure metaphysical doctrine whose transparent language is formed by the most abstract concepts and principles as well as by the most logical sequences: “for, says Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, the higher we indeed rise, and the more our words become concise, because the intelligible presents itself in an increasingly synoptic way” (Mystical Theology, 1033 B).
Indeed, since metaphysics uses the very language of intelligence, the act of intellection is one with intelligence itself. In this sense, the metaphysical discourse represents the limit case of hermeneutics, it is its ultimate interpreter and cannot be interpreted in turn. Moreover, in its ultimate position, metaphysical language can therefore only indicate its esoteric overcoming by suggesting its own erasure, with an apophatism, non-formal but real, dialectically implementing its “self-abolition”. “Blessed are the intelligences who know how to close their eyes” thus already indicated Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. It remains that, complementary to the intellectual mode, metaphysics can appeal to the symbolic mode; indeed these two modes “are indispensable: the symbolic makes us see, the intellective makes us hear”. But this does not modify the position of metaphysics as ultimate esotericism (without possible subsequent interpretation) and, therefore, as the hermeneutics most ontologically dependent on its object, which is the only interpreted topics with which it is concerned: the revelatum. As for the symbol, which can also be considered as a visible “interpreter” of an invisible “interpreted”, it also depends on what it interprets, but insofar as it is ontologically united to what presents itself in it. [pp. 36-37]
Notice of publication
The book that we present has been designed specifically for the Italian public, although it contains ideas that the author has developed more broadly in his other important works, which should therefore be read in parallel. Otherwise, it is advisable to meditate deeply on these pages and perhaps to combine them with the reading of The Metaphysics of the Eternal Gospel (translated title from Italian & French edition) by Silvano Panunzio with which there are important differences, but as many points of convergence. In both cases, it concerns a comeback to metaphysics, a return to a perspective which, declined in a Christian sense, can not only introduce and accompany the spiritual life of a believer, but also become a viable path for those who arrive by predisposition and by grace to possess the keys to it.
— Aldo La Fata
Reviews
Introduzione a una metafisica cristiana, Bruno Bérard’s lectio magistralis
See in the editing journalThe richness and originality of Bérard’s work lies precisely in this progressive definition, subject after subject, object after object. In a word: in order. There is something paternal in the author’s proceeding by degrees and along difficulties, in taking us by the hand out of arid rationalism to get closer to that ‘intellectual vision’, at the extreme confines of knowledge, which is the favorite way of Metaphysics. In just over two hundred pages, Bérard deals through admirable synthesis and clarity with concepts such as symbol—living entity—, hermeneutics, paradox, distinguishing between reason and intelligence, believing, knowing and cognizing… All this for then projecting himself into the fundamental concepts of Christianity and finding side, in equal measure, both in classical authors and in a group of contemporary scholars who, like him, probe the depths of the ultimate truths with a contemporary sensibility, hand in glove with Tradition.
Read the full paper (in English)
Introduzione ad una metafisica cristiana, the lectio magistrale by Bruno Bérard
Read the full review (in English)This personal essay is intended as a review of Bruno Bérard’s book Introduzione a una metafisica cristiana (Introduction to a Christian Metaphysics) (IMC).
First and foremost, however, I must declare that reading and reviewing this book has been a great honor and a great enrichment for me. This was for a variety of reasons; because I learned things I didn’t yet know; because it enabled me to take stock of many aspects that are still unclear in my studies; because I read it (perhaps not by chance), while I was preparing a radical critical reflection on the nature of Christian religious experience (ER). And Bérard’s interpretations of the latter are of the utmost importance.
