GÜNTHER, ANTON. « Semi-rationalist philosopher and theologian, b. at Lindenau (Bohemia) on 27 Nov. 1783, d. at Vienna on 24 Feb. 1863. Of humble origins, he began his studies at Leitmeritz, then moved on to Prague, where he had his first contacts with the philosophy of Herder and of Kant. At the end of his university course, having lost the faith, he devoted himself to law and was deeply struck by the superiority of ecclesiastical legislation over pagan legislation. Lacking means and forced to leave Prague after difficult years, he settled with his family in Vienna (1810), where by Michael Korn, parish priest of Brunn, he was induced to study Holy Scripture: it was a salutary reading, and through contact with the religious circle of Schlegel and of St. Clement Hofbauer he completed his conversion, returning to the Church. After completing a two-year course in theology at Jaur (Hungary) he was ordained a priest (1820), and in 1822 he entered the Society of Jesus and went for his novitiate to Starawicz (Galicia); but for reasons of health he had to leave it, retaining an excellent memory of the Jesuits. Having settled again in Vienna, he received from the imperial government the office of censor of works of philosophy and of law. He refused the chairs of Munich, of Bonn, of Breslau, in the hope of obtaining one at Vienna, but he was disappointed, very probably because of the novelty of the ideas he professed.
In fact, having devoted himself entirely to philosophy, he conceived the generous design of harmonizing modern thought with the Catholic faith, but, imbued as he was with the systems of Descartes, of Kant and of Hegel, he constructed a synthesis that could not fail to be disputed.
Starting from the historical fact of Christianity, he admitted that Jesus in his preaching set forth certain principles (summa credendorum principia), which, as in a germ, contained all the dogmas: a kind of primordial nebula, from which the "dogmatic cosmos" would slowly have been formed. This opus distinctionis is due to philosophy, which was able to deduce whatever was virtual and implicit hidden in the germs of Revelation. Philosophy, in its centuries-long development, gradually attained sparks of truth, which were defined by the Church; such definitions, however, are infallible in a relative sense, inasmuch as what was sanctioned was not the whole truth, but that particle which was then attainable. In our times philosophy has reached its maturity, and can therefore penetrate any mystery, bringing its intrinsic constitutive elements into clear light; the Church, following the progress of human knowledge, must confirm the definitive conquests of philosophy (objective progress of dogma).
With these premises G. penetrates into the sanctuary of the faith and rationalizes its mysteries. The earth is the reflection of heaven: from this begins the ascent to the higher spheres. The world implies three moments: spirit, nature, man. In man two essences are found, spirit (πνεῦμα) and nature (φόσις), each of which is endowed with knowledge, appetite, and consciousness: these two primordial substances, in themselves antithetical, find their synthesis in man, in whom the lower nature is united to the spirit, through the consciousness that the latter has of itself and of whatever belongs to nature, whose phenomena it refers to itself, so as to become the sole subject of attribution: this is the human personality (anthropological dualism). Cognition in the spirit has this development: the human spirit, insofar as it is created, is also limited, and can therefore know itself only through the stimulus of external phenomena, in which it sees itself as object, that is, as the antithesis and counterpart of itself, which it then discovers to be a reality identical with itself and caused by and dependent on itself: thus, having become perfectly conscious of itself, it constitutes itself as a person (conscientia sui).
Man is the image of God: from the image it is easy to ascend to the archetype. In God, uncreated spirit, knowledge (which is a metaphysical exigency of every spirit) does not unfold through phenomena (κατὰ φωνιώμενοι), but immediately, through itself (κατὰ πρᾶγμα), that is, the divine substance (absolute), being unable to know itself through a process of passive recency, posits itself (ethical principle) over against itself, as an object of intuition, in a perfect manner (κατὰ πρᾶγμα), that is, duplicating itself, so that the new substance generated by the first and opposed to it (antithetical principle) is likewise a substance and an absolute principle. In a third moment of the uncreated Spirit, the two absolute substances affirm their own equality, emanating, per modum unius principii, a third absolute substance (the synthetic, or homothetic, principle). This is the theogonic process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis (Hegelian influence), which constitutes three absolute substances, really and numerically distinct, each of which is conscious of its opposition to and identity with the other, whereby each becomes perfectly conscious of itself, constituting itself as a person; this is the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three essences or absolute substances, hypostatized, which form one sole God and also a single absolute person, not through numerical substantial identity, but through specific identity and through an organic dynamic-ethical union (tritheism).
The world is the inverse of the Trinity. The Father, in thinking himself, necessarily thinks that he is not the Son and the Holy Spirit (spiritual nature); the Son, that he is not the Father and the Holy Spirit (physical nature); the Holy Spirit, that he is not the Father and the Son (human nature); that is, in affirming himself, God necessarily includes the idea of his non-self (that is, the complex of essences: spiritual, natural, human: a non-divine triad), which he loves with the same love as himself, that is, a necessary love, and therefore he cannot but produce it: hence the necessary creation (an act integral to the intra-Trinitarian life), which is the best possible (cosmic optimism); it is made not out of impure egoism (as the Scholastics claim: «creavit ad gloriam suam manifestandam»), but out of pure love, that is, to make creatures happy. Among these, man emerges, created in original justice, owed to him by divine goodness (Baianism), which necessarily gives whatever the creature can receive. Sin disrupted the primitive plan, but God, by a necessary impulse of his love, redeems it in Jesus Christ, who is the synthesis of the two worlds (heavenly and earthly); in fact in Christ there are two perfect consciousnesses (the human and the divine), hence two complete persons (Nestorianism), which are intimately united in a hierarchical-psychological subordination: the human person has the consciousness of being totally dependent on the divine one and almost abdicates its prerogatives in favor of the hegemonic principle, which is found in the personality of the Word: thus the human and the divine, heaven and earth, are perfectly harmonized in the Redeemer (hypostatic union).
This imaginative synthesis was elaborated in many works: Vorschule zur spekulativen Theologie des positiven Christenthums (Vienna 1828-29; two parts: de Creatione and de Incarnatione); Peregrins Gastmahl in eif Octaven aus dem deutschen wissenschaftlichen Volksleben (ibid. 1830); Süd- und Nordlichter am Horizonte speculativer Theologie (ibid. 1832); Der letzte Symboliker (ibid. 1834: on the controversy between Moehler and Baur); Thomas a Scrupulis. Zur Transfiguration des Persönlichkeitsphantheismus (ibid. 1835: against Hegelian philosophy); Die Juste-Milieus in der deutschen Philosophie gegenwärtiger Zeit (ibid. 1838: against Baur); Eurystens und Herakles, metalogische Kritiken und Meditationen (ibid. 1843). In collaboration with Pabst he wrote against Baader: Janusköpfe für Philosophie und Theologie (ibid. 1833). Together with J. E. Veith he published from 1849 to '54 the periodical: Lydia, philosophisches Taschenbuch. The work: Lentigo's und Peregrins Briefwechsel (ibid. 1857) was not put on the market. G.'s Gesammelte Schriften were printed in Vienna in 1882.
The sensational titles of these works, written in a lively style, pervaded with mysticism, rich in poetic images (sometimes strange), were bound to make an impression on the romantic spirits of the first half of the 19th century, not versed in metaphysics and eager for novelty. Indeed Güntherianism swept, like an impetuous current, across all of Germany, winning over no mediocre minds (the physician J. H. Pabst, the Viennese canon J. E. Veith, the Benedictine abbot Th. Gangauf of Augsburg), rising to the best chairs, through the work of illustrious professors (I. Merten of Trier, J. B. Baltzer and P. J. Elvenich of Breslau, J. Nep. Erlich of Prague, C. Werner of St. Pölten, P. Knoodt and B. I. Hilgers of Bonn, A. von Schmidt of Salzburg), attracting the sympathy of high ecclesiastical personalities (Msgr. Arnoldi, bishop of Trier, Cardinal Diepenbrock of Breslau, Cardinal Schwarzenberg of Salzburg, and, at first, Cardinal D'Andrea, prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Index), and it seemed that the intellectual adventure of Güntherianism was destined to have a long course. But from the ranks of the resurgent Scholasticism there arose well-armed adversaries (for example, F. X. Dieringer, J. Clemens, H. Denzinger, J. Kleutgen, I. Schwetz, J. B. Katschahaler), and Viale Prelà, nuncio in Vienna, who had immediately defined G.'s system as a «dangerous path», informed the Holy See. After 6 years of careful investigations and sensational debates (the Sacred Congregation of the Index admitted public defenders of the system in the persons of Gangauf, Baltzer, Knoodt), on 15 June 1857 came the condemnation in Pius IX's brief Eximium iuxum, addressed to Cardinal Geissel, archbishop of Cologne. It struck G.'s Trinitarian, Christological, anthropological and cosmological errors and rejected the theory of the evolution of dogma (Denz-U, 1655-58). A month later G. submitted, sending the Pope a fine profession of faith, drafted by Can. Veith, the beneficent genius in the movement. Many followed the master's example. Baltzer, however, rebelled and in 1860 was personally struck in Pius IX's letter Dolore haud mediocri to the archbishop of Breslau (Denz-U, 1655, n. 1). The Vatican Council definitively condemned the error (ibid., 1783, 1795-96, 1800, 1805, 1816, 1818).
Bibliography27 works
Antonio Piolanti