Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

210 JOSEPH CHAPEL
Thou 10 : one comes to self-identity only in relation to the other.
His starting point is the reality of the “I” and the “Thou” which
pertain to a personal world of “relation” and “meeting,” in contrast
to an impersonal world of “experience” which is the reality
of “I-It”:
Basic words are spoken with one’s being. When one says You,
the I of the word pair I-You is said, too. When one says It, the I of
the word pair I-It is said, too. The basic word I-You can only be
spoken with one’s whole being. The basic word I-It can never be
spoken with one’s whole being. 11
There is risk in the I-Thou relation for there can be no withholding
of self for the whole being is involved. If not, it becomes
an I-It relation because part of the self is holding back as a spectator.
Everything is risked, because the I addresses the Thou
with the whole self, with no defensive position to run to. At the
same time, the Thou must be met in the freedom of otherness,
which means, to respond with total unpredictability. If responses
are calculated, if the I asks itself what kind of impression it is
making on the Thou, then the relation is to an It, not a Thou. So,
the I-Thou relation requires a total listening, always in the present,
without calculating with prejudgements from the past.
What makes such an I-Thou encounter possible is the zwischen
(the Between), a grace that is between the I and the Thou,
and which overcomes their isolation, which Buber interprets in a
religious sense. God is the origin of this grace and He makes every
encounter of the I and the Thou possible: “Every particular Thou
is a glimpse through to the eternal Thou; by means of every particular
Thou the primary word addresses the eternal Thou…” 12
The centrality of God as “the eternal Thou” or “absolute
Thou,” addressed in the second person rather than spoken about
10 MARTIN BUBER, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970); earlier English 2nd edition, trans. Ronald
Gregor Smith (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958).
11 BUBER, I and Thou, 54.
12 BUBER, I and Thou, 75.