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, later moving to Prague, where he first came into contact with the philosophy of Herder and Kant. At the end of his university course, he lost his faith and devoted himself to law, deeply impressed by the superiority of ecclesiastical legislation over pagan law. Lacking means and forced to leave Prague after difficult years, he settled with his family in Vienna (1810), where, through the influence of Michael Korn, parish priest of Brunn, he was led to study Holy Scripture: this proved salutary, and in contact with the religious circle of Schlegel and St. Clement Hofbauer, he completed his conversion and returned to the Church. After completing a two-year course in theology at Jaur (Hungary), he was ordained priest (1820) and in 1822 entered the Society of Jesus, proceeding to the novitiate at Staravicze (Galicia); but for reasons of health he had to leave, though retaining an excellent memory of the Jesuits. Re-established in Vienna, he was given by the imperial government the office of censor of philosophical and legal works. He refused chairs at Munich, Bonn, and Breslau, hoping for one in Vienna, but was disappointed, most likely because of the novelty of his ideas.
Indeed, devoting himself entirely to philosophy, he conceived the generous plan of harmonizing modern thought with Catholic faith, but steeped as he was in the systems of Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, he constructed a synthesis that could not but be controversial.
Starting from the historical fact of Christianity, he admitted that Jesus, in His preaching, enunciated 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 form. This work of distinction is due to philosophy, which was able to deduce what was virtual and implicit in the germs of Revelation. In its centuries-long development, philosophy gradually attained sparks of truth, which were defined by the Church; yet these definitions are infallible only in a relative sense, inasmuch as not the whole truth was sanctioned, but only that portion attainable at the time. In our own day philosophy has reached maturity and can therefore penetrate any mystery, clarifying its intrinsic constitutive elements; the Church, following the progress of human knowledge, must confirm the definitive achievements of philosophy (the objective progress of dogma).
With these premises G. enters the sanctuary of 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, and man. In man two essences are found, spirit (tveque) and nature (pouque), each endowed with knowledge, appetite, and consciousness: these two primordial substances, antithetical in themselves, find their synthesis in man, in whom lower nature is united to spirit through the consciousness that spirit has of itself and of what appears to nature, whose phenomena it refers to itself, so as to become the sole subject of attribution: this is human personality (anthropological dualism). The process of cognition in spirit unfolds thus: human spirit, being created, is also limited; it can therefore know itself only through the stimulus of external phenomena, in which it sees itself as an object, i.e., as the antithesis and counterpart of itself, which it then discovers as a reality identical with itself and caused and dependent on itself: thus, having become fully 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 Architect. In God, uncreated Spirit, knowledge (which is a metaphysical exigency of every spirit) does not unfold through phenomena (kata phantasiam), but immediately, per se (kata noesin), i.e., the divine substance (absolute), not being able to be known through a process of passive receptivity, posits itself (thetic principle) over against itself as an object of intuition, perfectly (kata noesin), duplicating itself so that the new substance generated by the first and opposed to it (antithetic principle) is equally a substance and an absolute principle. In a third moment of uncreated Spirit, the two absolute substances affirm their equality, emanating, per modum unius principii, a third absolute substance (the synthetic or homothetic principle). This is the theogenic process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (Hegelian influence), which constitutes three absolute substances, really and numerically distinct, each conscious of its opposition and identity with the other, whereby each becomes perfectly conscious of itself and constitutes itself as a person: this is the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three essences or absolute substances, hypostasized, forming one God and also one absolute person, not by numerical substantial identity, but by specific identity and by a dynamic-ethical organic union (tritheism).
The world is the inverse of the Trinity. The Father, in thinking Himself, necessarily thinks that He is not Son or Holy Spirit (spiritual nature); the Son that He is not Father or Holy Spirit (physical nature); the Holy Spirit that He is not Father or Son (human nature); i.e., in affirming Himself, God necessarily includes the idea of His non-ego (i.e., the complex of essences: spiritual, natural, human—the non-divine triad), which He loves with the same love He has for Himself, or rather, with necessary love, and therefore cannot but produce it: hence necessary creation (an integrating act introducing life), which is the best possible (cosmic optimism); it is not made out of impure egoism (as the Scholastics claim: “creavit ad gloriam suam manifestandam”), but out of pure love, i.e., to make creatures happy. Among these stands out man, created in original justice, owed to him by divine goodness (bainism), which necessarily gives what the creature can receive. Sin upset the primitive plan, but God, through a necessary impulse of His love, redeemed it in Jesus Christ, who is the synthesis of the two worlds (heavenly and earthly); for in Christ there are two perfect consciousnesses (the human and the divine), hence two complete persons (Nestorianism), which are united intimately in a hierarchical-psychological subordination: the human person has the consciousness of being totally dependent on the divine and almost abdicates its prerogatives in favor of the hegemonic principle 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; in two parts: de Creatione and de Incarnatione); Peregrins Gastmahl in eilf 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 Möhler and Baur); Thomas a Scrupulis. Zur Transfiguration des Persönlichkeitspantheismus (ibid. 1835; against Hegelian philosophy); Die fuste-Milieus in der deutschen Philosophie gegenwärtiger Zeit (ibid. 1838; against Baur); Eurystes 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 1854 the periodical: Lydia, philosophisches Taschenbuch. The work: Lentigo's und Peregrins Briefwechsel (ibid. 1857) was not put into commerce. G.’s collected writings were printed in Vienna in 1882.
The sensational titles of these works, written in a vivid style, steeped in mysticism, rich in poetic imagery (sometimes strange), were bound to impress the romantic spirits of the first half of the 19th century, untutored in metaphysics and eager for novelty. Indeed, Güntherism swept through all Germany like a mighty current, winning over no mean intellects (the physician J. H. Pabst, the Viennese canon J. E. Veith, the Benedictine abbot Th. Gangauf of Augsburg), occupying the best chairs through the efforts 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. Knoedt and B. I. Hilgers of Bonn, A. von Schmidt of Salzburg), and winning the sympathy of high ecclesiastical dignitaries (Msgr. Arnoldi, Bishop of Trier, Cardinals Diepenbrock of Breslau, Schwarzenberg of Salzburg, and, at first, Cardinal D’Andrea, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Index). It seemed that the intellectual adventure of Güntherism was destined for a long career. But from the ranks of the scholastic revival there arose formidable opponents (e.g., F. X. Dieringer, J. Clemens, H. Denzinger, J. Kleutgen, I. Schwetz, J. B. Katschthaler), and Mgr. Viale Prelà, the nuncio in Vicenza, who had at once defined G.’s system as a “dangerous path,” reported to the Holy See. After six years of careful investigation and heated debates (the Sacred Congregation of the Index admitted public defenders of the system in the persons of Gangauf, Baltzer, and Knoedt), on 15 June 1857 the condemnation came in Pius IX’s brief *Eximiam tuam*, addressed to Cardinal Geissel, Archbishop of Cologne. The errors condemned were those of G. in the fields of Trinitarian, Christological, anthropological, and cosmological doctrine, and the theory of the evolution of dogma was rejected (*Denz-U*, 1655-58). A month later G. submitted, sending the Pope a fine profession of faith drawn up by Canon Veith, the guiding genius of the movement. Many followed the master’s example. Baltzer, however, rebelled, and in 1860 he was personally struck by 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).